Invitations Under False Pretences
by Ridiculous Mavis
Summary: When a flippant letter catches Glinda out she manages to make the best of the lie she has created. Bookverse Shiz-era Gelphie fake dating.
1. Chapter 1

Glinda placed her head delicately on her desk in defeat. Yet another missive from her parents and yet another enquiry into her social life. It was becoming increasingly hard to massage the fact that she now almost exclusively spent her time with Elphaba, Nessa and Nanny. That she occasionally went to the pub with the motliest of imaginable crews.

Pfannee and Shenshen languished unvisited down the hall. Without real effort Glinda's letters home would be a constant recital of 'Elphaba and I… Elphaba and I…'

Perhaps she ought to get out more. But she had very dramatically ceased to care about such things.

If only her parents would.

Every week they wrote and more than once had gone unanswered before the next arrived. While dining out on Glinda's academic success to their friends in Frottica they simultaneously seemed to suggest she do less.

Glinda was sure she was suffering some discombobulation from it all. She had been so convinced as to her own genius in arriving at Shiz. Since that day she had grown less and less sure, less and less capable. The world constantly unfolded anew, revealing her ignorance.

Elphaba said - Glinda threw down her pen and it skittered across the desk leaving smudges in protest.

Elphaba said! Again, Elphaba. Elphaba did little more than sit in judgement and dispense bon mots. Irritatingly they were off-the-cuff far better than anything Glinda put real effort into. These letters were in danger of being nothing more than The Collected Wisdoms of Elphaba Thropp.

Her parents ought to be careful what they wished for. Some girls' parents would be thrilled their child was getting an education and not fraternising with young men. Glinda considered that for a moment. On reflection that seemed unlikely. University was a bone tossed before marriage. A preamble, or, to really pay off on the investment, the prologue in the Happy Ever After story where the gentleman of good fortune met his cultivated bride-to-be.

Having now worked herself up into what Nanny would describe as "a right tizzy" Glinda fumed with righteous indignation, seized up her pen and added a final paragraph to the letter.

"In fact I have formed an attachment of great merit - to Elphaba. I hope you will be thrilled, she is after all the heir to the Thropp Eminency, of tall Munchkin stock and the strength of the green can be muted with sympathetic lighting. Your ever loving daughter."

She triumphantly signed off and rammed the letter into its envelope before throwing herself onto her bed and letting out a loud groan. Damn her parents for making her come here. She had been perfectly happy in her Pertha Hills ignorance of the world. And now, to top it all off, she would have to rewrite the whole letter just to erase that one childish flight of fancy at the end.

That could wait until tomorrow though, until she had calmed herself down and composed a more appropriate retort.

The next morning she woke fully dressed in much the same position she had landed in last night but was so busy getting ready for class she forgot the cause of it.

That evening the Buttery was host to a great disagreement over Unionist versus Lurlinistic iconography that must be so urgently resolved that Glinda and Elphaba followed Nessa back into her room next door and stayed there all evening until someone thumped on the wall in protest at which point Glinda returned to her room and again fell asleep fully dressed.

The morning after that Nanny came in squawking and harassing Glinda into readiness for a day that she was not at all ready for.

That afternoon Glinda blew off a study session in the library in order to manage her life better so that she did not once more fall asleep fully clothed. She sallied into her room with all the best of intentions for productivity.

Elphaba was in situ reading, watching the tidying and listening to the pronouncements with great patience and only the tiniest of smirks.

Presently Glinda turned her attentions to her desk and groaned at the remembrance she must write that letter all over again. At least now she could consult Elphaba on a suitable way to shatter her parents dreams that she would be getting married any time soon.

She moved a pile of books out of the way. Then she moved a pair of stockings, a bill of sale, an old Buttery menu, more books, her pens, more receipts, a shawl, blotting paper, notecards, more books, several newspapers, an illustrated Pertha Hills calendar of rural scenes… until she reached the bare wood of the desk top.

Then she went through this pile on the floor, replacing it on the desk, until she reached the battered rug. She stood, feeling a little queasy.

"Elphaba," Glinda said, grey and desperate, "where is the letter I had here?"

"I took it to the post," Elphaba answered, pausing in anticipation of thanks that was most certainly not forthcoming.

"Elphaba..." Glinda tried to extract a different outcome from a repeated question. "Did you post the letter to my parents that was on my desk?"

"Yes. I had some correspondence of my own to take to the porter. Which reminds me: you owe me for the postage."

Glinda sat down forcefully. "When was this?"

"Yesterday. You can be very forgetful."

Glinda lost sensation in her fingertips. "Where do you suppose it is now?"

"On your precious railway I should imagine. Is everything all right?"

On the very brink of an aneurysm Glinda forced a smile, teeth grinding.

Elphaba put down her book and leant forward across the bed. "What is going on? Are you unwell?"

"I will be unwell soon, have no doubt. Unwell enough to be removed from school and quietly married off to some poor unsuspecting dairy farmer."

Elphaba stood. "I think I shall fetch Nanny."

"No need. Nanny cannot help me. No-one can help me."

"Would you like to explain to me what is going on?"

"The letter you took was unfinished."

"Unfinished? It was in its envelope."

"Not unfinished, exactly. It contained an inaccuracy that I was going to amend today, before posting."

"Oh. Well, I apologise. Write to them now with your correction and I shall take it to the post for you. I will even waive the fee."

"Not so easily rectified," Glinda informed her. "You can do me a favour though and pass me down my valise from the wardrobe. I hear Quadling country is just lovely this time of year. The way the sun glints off the marshes. You spent some time in the Ovvels, would you like to show me around? On second thoughts, best you did not come. I don't suppose you know the protocol for being admitted to a mauntery? Oh, what am I saying, Nessa will know. I will ask her." Glinda stood to leave with a perplexed Elphaba floating in her wake. "My valise, if you would be so kind." She hurried from the room.

The first stop was in fact the porter's office to make sure the post had indeed left. It was long gone, and several more besides. Glinda managed to get herself admitted to look through the stack of letters herself.

"How efficient the post is now with the railroad!" she exclaimed weakly. "If a letter were sent from here yesterday is there any chance of my beating it to its destination?"

"Not if it is on the railway," the beleaguered porter answered. "Miss, you really ought to go."

Glinda left but wandered aimlessly without destination. She went around the gardens and sat on an obscured bench in a blank and distracted state. Only when the chill began to creep into her hands and feet did she realise how dark and late it had become.

Glinda slipped into her room hoping Elphaba might be out. She was not, in fact she remained in much the same position as Glinda had left her. Perhaps now with a touch of relief on her face.

"You haven't fetched down my case."

"Maunts are not permitted their own worldly goods," Elphaba said. It sounded almost like an apology. "Where have you been?"

"Nowhere."

"For six hours?"

"Has there been any message for me?"

"No. Are you expecting one?"

"Imminently." The panic had faded to a curious throbbing, the worst stomach ache, sinking down from in her throat, her lungs, to the pit of her gut.

Any minute now there would be a telegram, to her or - the panic rose again - to Morrible. Grommetik would summon her to the head's office.

There was a knock on the door. It even made Elphaba startle, the hysteria in the room so high. Glinda clutched at Elphaba's hand. "Will you come with me?"

Mystified, Elphaba looked at their hands, then up at Glinda. "Of course."

The door opened. Elphaba began an objection.

"Only me - checking you are decent -" And Nanny bustled in. "Seen my share of nubile young flesh and that was quite enough of that -"

Glinda shook. Elphaba was watching her closely. "Actually, Nanny, do you mind…"

"I do, as it happens. This is my place of work. You go elsewhere if you don't want Nanny rattling about but I am busy."

Elphaba squeezed Glinda's hand for a moment before letting go. "I'd take you to the pub except Nanny is clearly too busy to chaperone us effectively. So I am afraid the Buttery will have to do."

* * *

The Buttery, in fact, did not do at all. The chatter of the other girls was especially irritating tonight. Every time the door squeaked its way open Glinda's eyes were on it. And her crumpet was burned.

"It's because they use the cheapest flour," Glinda said.

Elphaba looked startled. "What is?"

Glinda indicated the crumpet.

"Oh, so that's not the reason behind your afternoon's absence and, frankly, alarming behaviour?"

"I am being ridiculous," Glinda freely admitted. "But then, I usually am."

"A great deal of the time," Elphaba agreed. "Are you going to tell me what is going on?"

"You will laugh."

"Good. I haven't laughed in a week."

Glinda smiled. "Do you mind if I don't? I just want to forget about it for a while." The incessant gnawing in her stomach made that unlikely, but she could try.

"If you like." Elphaba was always amenable to postponing the more emotional.

"I am going to miss you," Glinda said quietly.

"Really, now!" Elphaba was incensed again. "Just what is happening here?"

The nearest table turned to look. Once they realised who was causing the disturbance they were hardly surprised, looked down their noses, and continued their conversation.

Glinda and Elphaba watched them. Glinda felt immune to it all now. Not right now, but of late. Yet those insecurities were creeping back.

"Glinda, I insist."

She looked at Elphaba, resolved. "Give me a boost over the kitchen garden wall and I will tell you."

"Deal."

* * *

Glinda bought several rounds for Elphaba and herself along with a few new friends made as soon as she started buying several rounds - and they talked no more about the events of the afternoon.

Even staggering back to Crage Hall in the grey dawn light they made no mention. Glinda had no more of a plan than she had done when they entered the pub but she was at least drunk.

Elphaba broke her straightfaced streak and laughed when she toppled off the wall and landed askew among the turnips. Glinda tried to help her up with the end result that they were out of breath and covered in mud when they slipped in through the kitchen door. A scullery maid looked on. "I am dreadfully sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. I shall of course reimburse Cook for the turnips," she promised.

They shuffled quietly along the halls though the sounds of first stirring could be heard. In an empty bathroom Glinda emptied her stomach of food and alcohol, allowing it to fill back up with fear and regret.

"I feel wretched," she told Elphaba.

"Little wonder," was all the sympathy she got.

* * *

At least that night she slept soundly, the panic mitigated by the not having slept in two days. Physical pains were something to concentrate on. They did not exactly take her mind off things, being as it was all connected.

While she did not immediately head off to the mauntery she did take some precautions in persuading the purser to release a little extra allowance. She went to classes in a vain attempt at normality but did no work as it seemed futile.

She did not confide in Elphaba.

Elphaba, who watched her carefully - more carefully - now. Who had been uncomprehendingly drawn into a scandal that was surely inevitably and imminently making its way down from Frottica.

Perhaps her parents were making some preparations, and that was why it was taking so long? Perhaps, oh, if only the Unnamed God were so merciful, perhaps her letter had become lost. Or merely delayed. The chance of beating it to her parents had seemed impossible. Now it looked as though it may have been worth a try.

More days passed.

Each evening Elphaba went to the steward to check for mail and returned empty handed, searching Glinda's drawn face for clues.

Until the evening she didn't.

She held the letter, recognising the script as Glinda's mother's.

"One last chance to tell me what this week has all been about."

"Depending on what that letter says."

"Are you going to open it now? Or are we back over the garden wall for another night of debauchery?"

"I'll let you know once I have read it."

"Should I go?"

"I would rather you stayed, if you don't mind?"

Elphaba nodded and sat down on her bed. Glinda sat too. A deep breath. "Actually, I think -"

She tried to get up but Elphaba seized her by the elbow. "Open it. You will feel better when it is all done."

Oh, if only, Glinda thought. But at least then she would know what was to become of her.

With shaking hands she opened the letter and scanned the preamble of the first few paragraphs.

"… and so your father's fishponds do well. As to your news, my dear, I am so very happy to hear that you have found companionship in Elphaba. Please do not worry that the romance may be a little unconventional. It may be atypical but not unheard of. You were only small at the time but did you know that your first governess left when her lady friend set up a school, and they went to teach there together?"

Glinda let the page drop. She looked up, not at anything in particular, perhaps fancying that she could see through the walls and all the hundreds of miles to her parents' house, into the parlour where her mother composed letters at the little desk, reminiscing about the inclinations of former employees.

"Well?" Elphaba prompted.

"I'm not entirely sure," she replied. Trepidation was replaced with curiosity.

"Of course it would be remiss of your father and I not to make enquiries as to the suitability of the match and to your own satisfaction with it. We propose to come to Shiz Friday week and will look forward to taking Elphaba and yourself out to dinner."

The trepidation ripped back into life.

"The thing is, Elphaba…"


	2. Chapter 2

"The thing is, Elphaba…"

"Yes? Do continue. In your own time, naturally."

"The inaccuracy that I referred to in the letter to my parents which you ever so helpfully prematurely posted…"

"Yes."

"You recall I have told you that they constantly ask after my prospects and whether I have met any suitable matches…"

"Yes."

"I told them I had. I told them it was you."

Elphaba said nothing.

"In your own time," Glinda prompted.

"Why - why would you do that?"

"Honestly I have no idea. I was thinking of what you might say in reply to them. I had you on the brain, I suppose."

"But to say we were -"

"I know, I know. It was monumentally foolish of me."

"And your concern was over them finding this out?"

"My concern was over being pulled from school and quickly married off to some backwoods farmer."

"Of course. So… their response?"

"To the contrary, rather positive."

Elphaba was as stunned as Glinda had ever seen her. "They do know who I am?"

"Tosh, honestly. The thing is, they want to come down to see us. Take us out for dinner. Give you a gentle grilling."

"Well you now have the opportunity to amend the mistake in your reply."

"I'm not sure I can."

That threw more of a spanner into the works. "Whyever not?"

"You know they never come here, they hate the railway and the city and the whole thing. And mother seemed, I don't know, so cheerful. I had imagined I would currently be being disowned."

"Glinda, I have a terrible feeling," Elphaba slowly replied, "that you might be implying we do something deeply irregular."

"I am not, I am not at all."

Elphaba nodded in appreciation. "I am glad your fears about their reaction were unfounded."

But Glinda was not done implying that they do something deeply irregular. "It's just that -"

Elphaba turned her eyes to the heavens.

"Well, do you think it would be possible, just for one night, maybe the weekend, for us to allow them the illusion that we are a couple?"

"Absolutely not."

"Oh, please, Elphaba."

"No. That is a deception of the highest order and I will not be a part of it."

"There's really no harm in it."

Glinda could see that, yes, there was objectively harm in such a thing. But this was a side of her parents Glinda had never anticipated seeing and she wanted to see more of it. There was no harm in that, to the contrary in fact.

Of course Elphaba would not be convinced so easily. "There is always harm in such a lie."

"I will be caught in a lie in either direction. To admit to them the joke I pulled, or to give them this distraction, just for one meal. Please?"

"You are compounding a lie, not nullifying it."

"Goodness, so sanctimonious. Never mind. I ought not be trying to corrupt the purity of your conscience. I shall write to them directly and make my confession."

"Good. You will feel all the better for it. You have fretted so much this week I thought you would make yourself ill."

"I thought they would find me ill. I am so pleasantly surprised they do not. I would like to have seen more of this open-mindedness."

"For courting a woman?" Elphaba snorted. "The Pertha Hills really are behind the times."

"Mock all you like. It is not exactly encouraged. If Morrible knew I am sure we would be out on our ears."

"There is nothing for Morrible to know," Elphaba intoned. "Nor will there be."

"Yes, yes," Glinda sniffed. "Writing directly."

* * *

Glinda did not write directly.

A few days later a telegram arrived confirming details of the visit. They were staying in a respectable hotel near the Railway Square from where they would be able to do some sightseeing and had made a reservation at an exclusive restaurants among the captains of industry and bankers that Shiz thronged with.

Elphaba wore one of her more murderous faces for a day or two.

And finally capitulated. "Your foolishness notwithstanding, I have no wish to see your family disappointed in you."

Glinda could not discern Elphaba's true motivations, so assumed it was out of some loyalty that ordinarily resided very - very - deep down in Elphaba's psyche. It was more likely that Elphaba thought her a little idiot and was just trying to ride out the experience with the minimal friction possible.

When she told Nanny that a visit was expected from her parents, and Nanny pointed out that there was a good deal of cleaning to be done, in that case, Elphaba pulled her to one side.

"You know, if this were true there would be no way we would still be allowed to be in the same room."

Perplexity. "What if we didn't tell anyone?"

"Should have thought of that before you told your parents," Elphaba said archly.

"Nanny," Glinda said quickly, "slight change of plan. I think it would be better that Nessa and yourself relocated next door and I take this room."

"And why should that be better?"

"I'm not sure this ruse will be possible without Nanny," Elphaba pointed out and earned an appreciative nudge.

"Listen to this one, she knows her Nanny. Now then, what is all this in aid of?"

"If it were necessary that Elphaba and I not be roomies it would make more sense for the family to move into the larger room and me to be in here, surely?"

"Glinda has led her parents to believe that she and I are in a relationship so it is necessary to make some adjustments to our living arrangements during their visit."

Glinda glared.

"Is that so?" Nanny asked sweetly. "Congratulations."

Glinda scowled.

"You'll be doing all the heavy lifting then? Nessa and I shall go down to the market, maybe a spot of tea in one of them fancier places, and find everything settled when we return. Care to join us, Elphie?"

"Why I think I just might."

Glinda forbade.

* * *

With Nanny paid off to take Nessa out, Glinda and Elphaba did a mediocre job of switching rooms. A superficial level was achieved. Then Glinda remembered some item she absolutely could not live without having even as far away as the next room. So a little more was added. Then a little more was added, then more, then more. Until a few days' stay required nearly every single thing be moved.

"This is absurd," Elphaba said, and was no doubt ready to say a good many other things besides.

"One might say that having caused this calamity you should help repair it."

"One ought not say such a patently ridiculous thing."

Glinda emptied the contents of the dresser by her bed. "It is a pain to be so uprooted only for a weekend. But then I shall set all to rights."

"And how will you go about that?"

"After a respectable period of time I shall simply inform them that you are not a good match and that I broke it off."

Elphaba was hanging up Nessa's dresses very slowly, very deliberately. "Am I not a good match?"

"You are joking?" Glinda was thrown into confusion all of a sudden. "Please be joking."

Elphaba said nothing, did nothing.

"Oh sweet Lurline." Glinda was not ready for this.

"Of course I am joking."

Glinda exhaled. One could never tell with Elphaba. Even now.

Indeed, her respite was limited. Elphaba continued. "Naturally I should not be your match. No doubt they will be greatly pleased you have recovered your moment of madness."

"Elphaba..."

"Do not pretend it isn't true." Elphaba turned, not to face Glinda, not making eye contact, but into the room. "Do not pretend that the reason my name appeared on the nib of your pen was for anything other than the sheer naked horror of it."

"I need not pretend because it is not so."

Elphaba scoffed at her as she had not for months. Foolish, vapid, pretentious Glinda. "Why did you write my name then? I have been wondering. Why me, if not for the scandal and your delight in it?"

Now Elphaba shook with incandescent rage, waiting for Glinda to speak and no doubt incriminate herself further.

"Yours was the first name that came to mind."

Throwing her armful of clothes onto the bed, Elphaba rolled her eyes.

"It's true! It wasn't a joke on you. It was a frustration towards them."

"Nothing else?"

"No, Elphaba, it was a reaction. I meant nothing by it."

"You are even less self-aware than I had thought. I am going to the library. I would think that when I get back you will be in your new quarters."

"Elphaba, please…" But Elphaba was gone.

* * *

In numbness Glinda collected the last of her belongings and went next door to her temporary new room.

Damn Elphaba and her so very tenuous grasp on her self confidence. Or more the way she tried to hide it all the time. Leaving Glinda to make constant mistakes over the level of self assuredness. When in reality there was none. Glinda ought, she decided, to take no notice of the bluff and assume Elphaba was always in need of reassurance. They had seen it enough times, over those wretched slippers of Nessarose's even, a matter one would think was so far below Elphaba's concern as to be laughable. Such was the face presented to the world. So Glinda had overestimated some aspect of the emotional ramifications of this plan for Elphaba. She was certainly innocent of using her roomie for the shock value.

Of course that was not true in the least so Glinda put her head in her hands and stayed that way for over an hour until all the introspection made her hungry and she went in search of food.

With her parents arriving tomorrow she was now having genuine concerns. She found she could not eat. She went to the library to find Elphaba, to try to come to some sort of understanding of all these layers of distress and distrust. But Elphaba was not there.

Back at their rooms Nanny and Nessa had returned. Nessa sat happily on Glinda's bed. "Had I arrived at Crage Hall on my own terms then I would have a room like this." So Glinda left again, well aware how that, too, was her fault. They had not seen Elphaba but in Glinda's mind's eye she could well envisage a flash of cloak disappearing over the wall and down the cobbled streets into the heart of Shiz. As anonymous as possible, which was barely at all.

Whatever hole Elphaba had slinked off to she was not back in her room by curfew as the last girls went skittering through the corridors, lamps were dimmed, amas retired and the porter locked the front door. Hushed voices gave way to quiet. Just the wind and a dripping tap somewhere.

And out there, Elphaba. Also out there, Glinda's parents, spending the night in Wiccasand Turning in preparation for what they saw as an arduous journey the next morning. No doubt taking to bed with a draught.

* * *

In the morning Glinda loitered outside her old room holding her wash bag and continually pretending to be just on her way whenever anyone passed. Until Nanny came out.

"Saints preserve us, you out here like some ghost almost turned me into one. What are you doing, child?"

"Is Elphaba there?"

"Why not knock on the door and find out?"

"Nanny, please."

"All right chick, I shan't plague you because no, she is not. Rather thought she was with you but that's not looking likely."

"She's not."

Nanny tsked. "You two will be the unemployment of me." Then, "Your parents you are worrying about?"

"They will be here in hours. Elphaba is right, I suppose, as usual. I will just have to tell them. I should never have been so awful in the first place."

"That's a possibility," Nanny nodded. "Now if you don't mind, go have your crisis somewhere else and let me get on."

"If you see Elphaba -"

"I'll tell her to come kiss and make up, don't you worry. After a stern talking to."

Nanny did not seem all that worried so Glinda resolved not to be either. It was normally easier as she would be accompanying Elphaba on any illicit adventures. Now it was a worry and a pain and she felt bad for feeling bad about her parents when clearly Elphaba had something going on. She wanted Elphaba around for when her parents arrived. But she also just wanted Elphaba back.

At one o'clock, having worn a hole in the rug of her room, Glinda was wearing a hole in the rug in the visiting parlour waiting for her parents - due any minute. Elphaba still had not put in an appearance and she was going to have to make an excruciating confession.

A maid showed in her parents prompting a flurry of kisses, requests for tea, removal of hats and gloves and complaints about the weather. They looked around the room with a wide-eyed suspicion.

"We're sorry we haven't made the journey before -"

"Turns out it was quite simple -"

"We were saying, quite straightforward -"

"Lovely hotel, got us all straightened out -"

"Such nice people -"

"One does worry in the city."

Glinda wasn't going to ask what the worry might be. Anything they could think of.

Tea was served and there was a clear straining as her parents wanted to ask. Glinda wanted to be able to give them an answer.

"So…" Here it came. Her mother smiled sweetly.

"I'm so glad the journey went well," Glinda said.

"Yes."

If she could only get her father talking about travelling she could buy some more precious time. "What time did you have to leave to get to the station?"

Her father opened his mouth to reply. Her mother interrupted. "I am looking forward to meeting Elphaba."

"Yes," Glinda said. "You see, the thing about Elphaba -"

Glinda heard the door open. Her heart leapt waiting to hear what came next.

"I am so sorry I am late. I got delayed after class…"

Glinda was turning as Elphaba breezed past her and went forward to greet her parents, shaking hands, complimenting her mother's necklace, noting their journey and being just generally alarmingly charming. The surge of gratitude filled Glinda up. And on top of that a relief, for Elphaba being here and for having been forgiven.

Finally Elphaba took a step back, alongside Glinda, who looked at her but whose gaze was not returned. Elphaba's hand reached out and took her own, lifted it and patted it, but still no eye contact.

"Elphaba…" she whispered.

Elphaba did turn now. The look she held on her face made Glinda wish she had not. There was never any warmth to Elphaba but this was devoid even of any delighted derision, any gentle mocking. Cold and withdrawn.

"Let's just get this over with."


	3. Chapter 3

"Let's just get this over with."

The softness of Elphaba's grasp now felt noncommittal. The warmth of her hand turned cold.

"Elphie…"

"So, Elphaba, I understand you study Life Sciences?"

Elphaba turned away from Glinda, had there ever been any chance of her answering Glinda's plea.

"Yes. It is challenging work."

"And what application does it have? Does it overlap with the agriculture courses?"

"Absolutely -" and Elphaba was away, expounding the merits of her chosen course of study.

Highmuster was listening intently and Glinda scrutinised her father's face for the flicker of disgust, of fear, that she felt sure must come.

"How are your studies, Glinda?" her mother eventually got a chance to ask.

"They go very well," Glinda said, feeling a heat behind her eyes all of a sudden and for no good reason.

"Don't suppose you are picking up anything useful from Elphaba?" her father laughed.

"I pick up a great deal from Elphaba," she said candidly, gazing at her. For a moment Elphaba looked back, then sharply returned to their audience.

"Glinda is far more brilliant than she will admit. Than she knows," Elphaba said.

But their hands lay limp between them.

"It's so wonderful you are so supportive of one another," her mother gushed. "I worry that a young man might have looked down on Glinda's attempts to get an education. But you, Elphaba, you appreciate it for yourself too."

"I should show you around," Glinda interrupted before Larena could begin waxing too lyrical. "Show you my room." She was not going to let them leave without having seen the room, what with the amount of effort that had gone into arranging it.

"Very well," her mother said, rising. "Will you be joining us, Elphaba?"

"I am afraid I have some lab work to prepare," Elphaba said - lied, Glinda knew. "But I hope you have a good afternoon and I will look forward to seeing you at dinner."

"Of course. It was lovely to meet you, dear."

"You too." Elphaba now turned to Glinda. They faltered. "I will see you later," Elphaba mumbled, and left.

Glinda said nothing. Elphaba could barely meet her eye. Though she had come. But been cruel. It swung back and forth and now Glinda fervently wished she could find a quiet spot to puzzle it all out but she had a tour to embark on and questions to answer.

So instead she hurried her parents up to the bedrooms. Properly she ought to have introduced them to Madame Morrible, but the risk was too great.

Their faces fell a little at the shabbiness of the room.

"Originally this was Ama Clutch's room," Glinda said, invoking the spirit of her ama to make the mood more respectful. "Then Elphaba's nanny and her sister. Then of course it became necessary that we swap." It may be a fantasy but she was going to observe proper decorum.

Her father drew up in front of drawings on the wall - drawings that Glinda had not tacked there herself, which left only Elphaba. "What are these?" he asked, though followed it up with, "this is the railway station, is it not?"

"It is," Glinda said, coming to stand alongside him. "And this is the opera house, the library at Three Queens College, the bandstand at the park by the canal…" She remembered that day - the boys horsing about on the lawns, her drawing the picture and Elphaba watching her the whole time.

"You drew them?"

"Yes." She was not sure what reaction that might bring about.

"What a talent," he beamed.

She took another plunge. "I have an interest, you see, in buildings." It had been a long held assumption that this would not be seen as a useful pursuit. Paint a still life, coy portraiture, but not this.

"In buildings?"

"In the planning, design and execution."

"I see." Her father seemed pleased, her mother only slightly bemused. "Next time you are home you will have to look over the plans for the new barns."

"I would like that," she said. Then summoned something up from deep inside. "I would like to know more about the running of the estate."

"We will have a university educated asset on our hands. We will make the most of you, you can depend on it." His enthusiasm was touching.

Elphaba had constructed this. Glinda thought she heard the door of the next room and wanted to know whether it was Elphaba. It was just as likely Nessa and Nanny - whom she definitely did not want to encounter if she could help it. It was strange to be so ignorant of Elphaba's comings and goings.

"We could take a walk in the grounds," Glinda offered. "There are some places where it is possible to glimpse a charming vista of the university towers."

Her father pointed at one of the drawings.

"Yes, but the original is far more lovely."

* * *

So Glinda guided them around, talking mostly of home. Avoiding everyone she desired to avoid and beginning to feel she was not perhaps as cursed as it might first have appeared.

Much as she was enjoying this and trying to make the most of it she wanted nothing more than to go - to run back to her room, to find Elphaba.

She saw her parents back to the gate then was off as fast as she could go without raising suspicion. Speeding along just short of a run she launched through the door of her former room. Nessa looked at her with a complete lack of surprise.

"Do you know where Elphaba is?"

"No."

"She came by earlier but I know she doesn't have lab work."

"I assume you have tried the library and all the usual spots, or you would not be here wasting your breath?"

"No, she would be hidden away somewhere so I didn't run into her. May I wait in here? She must be on her way back soon - to get ready for our meal."

Nessa did not look convinced on that point.

The door opened several times and it was always Nanny. Until eventually one of the door-openings was Elphaba. She frowned at the sight of Glinda, who sprang up and ploughed on regardless.

"Thank you for coming earlier."

Elphaba was the picture of discomfort. She still would not meet Glinda's eye. "You can tell your parents I am sick this evening."

"Oh, no, Elphie, you did so well. They loved you. The hard part -"

Elphaba's eyes flashed to Nessa and she nodded her head to the door. They went into the corridor, but not all the way to Glinda's room, and spoke in a strained hush.

"The worst part is over," Glinda said again.

"No, it definitely continues."

"A nice meal, a break from Crage Hall, a little diversion?" Glinda tried to entice her.

The most withering look was received in answer.

"Please? Elphaba, I know I have been wrong in all this. But my parents being here… I never thought they would. And even without this pretence, I would want you to come to dinner with us. I would want them to know you."

Elphaba shuffled and looked mightily aggrieved, eventually turning back to Glinda. "Shall we go then?"

Glinda faltered. "You're not… going like that?"

"It's like this or not at all and you are in no position to be making demands."

Glinda raised her hands in surrender. "You look perfectly reasonable. Just let me get my shawl."

* * *

Glinda's parents stood to greet them, kissing even Elphaba on both cheeks. They were acquainted now, after all. Each sat opposite their supposed partner and the table was large enough to keep one another at arm's distance. Highmuster had already placed their order, with wine coming thick and fast too, which Glinda found great solace in.

After the entree the conversation was turned to Elphaba. How she squirmed under the attention but Glinda was in a belligerent mood by now - Elphaba had made no attempt to assuage Glinda's guilt so she would make no attempt to soften Elphaba's discomfort.

There was a thickness on her tongue, which she attempted to wash away with more wine. The stuff for this course was tangy in her mouth.

They just had to get through this evening and everything could be sorted out from there. But the courses came out agonisingly slowly. The pauses in between became endless stretching voids. The backdrop of tinkling cutlery, the chatter of patrons, only seemed to highlight their own struggle. The light was too bright, the staff too hovering and Glinda felt cornered.

When the conversation must stay away from politics, religion and sex there was precious little left. With Elphaba the conversation could also not include the future. Or much about her studies, so inextricably linked with politics and religion as they were. Which was a shame, really, as ordinarily politics and religion were some of the most fun things to talk to Elphaba about.

It did not leave an awful lot to talk about.

They foundered, and Glinda - whose fault this all was - foundered hardest of all.

"Where have you two been this afternoon?" she asked quickly.

"Oh, well, to the museum, of course, the collections of Glikkun artifacts are quite lovely -"

"Elphaba will not go to the museum, she objects on moral grounds." It was wrong of her and she hated it but found herself unable to stop.

Elphaba was not going to resist such an invitation and Glinda knew it. "The fact they are lovely would be why they were stolen from the Glikkus."

"I don't believe they were stolen…" Highmuster began.

"Of course, Elphaba, you have great interest in the outer territories. You spent time in Quadling country as a child as well? How fascinating." Larena attempted to get them all back on track.

"Very ordinary, in fact," Elphaba replied with remarkable restraint. "Different, but then Shiz is different from the Pertha Hills."

"Indeed, indeed, very different," Glinda's father agreed and glanced around himself.

"But not to have been to the heart of Gillikin country," Larena could not believe it. "You must come to Frottica."

They had spoken about it before, joked about it before. It felt different now.

"Maybe one day," Elphaba said, her tone a little lower than before. Glinda could hear it, could see it in the strain in her jaw.

"And you will go to Colwen Grounds," her mother said cheerfully, to Glinda.

"I do not go to Colwen Grounds myself," Elphaba jumped in.

"Oh." Larena looked worriedly at Glinda.

Who shrugged unhelpfully. "Elphaba has many quirks that I must not question."

Now all three of her companions were looking at her. She shuffled up in her chair a little more, aware of a drift downward.

Her mother laughed nervously. "We all have our quirks."

Glinda was too prickly for the conciliation. "Some of us have quirks to spare."

"I'm sorry." Now her mother was apologising to Elphaba, of all people.

There was a residual feeling of this all being very wrong. It stirred deep within Glinda, a relic. Uncomfortable memories of a former self. Too recent, too raw to be toyed yet here she was waking ghosts all of her own accord. It all felt wrong and not for the first time - nor indeed the last - Glinda was massively regretting the whole thing.

The look from her mother was not a new one. Quelling any impropriety, any hint of having a personality. Larena might be surprising her on the Elphaba front but was not going to let her get away with any rudeness.

This tension that had come between her and Elphaba was too much for Glinda to handle. She was afloat. She wanted Elphaba to tell her off, to spar with her properly, but Elphaba was playing the part too well, for whatever reason she had decided to, and so reluctantly.

"Glinda has suffered all my peculiarities so well." Elphaba's lip curled enough for Glinda to notice.

"Now then," her mother laughed nervously, "there are no peculiarities among friends."

"Be assured that there are," said Glinda. "And I have suffered them at great length."

"Glinda…" Larena was uncomfortable and it was not at Elphaba. It was Glinda.

And she realised what she had done.

To see the strained look on Elphaba's face that she was working so hard to keep from Glinda's parents. The agonies of feeling that she did not understand what was going on. That she had hurt Elphaba terribly with her carelessness. Unintentional, she told herself. In reality: half intentional. To hurt her parents she had wielded Elphaba and hurt her instead. It was a terrible mess.

A lump caught in her throat. "And yet, through it all…" Glinda smiled fondly at Elphaba, not even slightly forced. "Elphaba has taught me a great deal about the world. About myself." She wanted Elphaba to feel that, beyond the charade. But Elphaba was inscrutable as always.

* * *

Outside the restaurant they prevaricated about getting a cab long enough that Glinda's parents eventually left before them and it was just herself and Elphaba stood in the coolness of the night. Glinda felt it especially against the warmth of her cheeks and the reminder of her behaviour that evening made them burn even more.

Glinda put her hand on Elphaba's arm. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

It was not a polite demurral of the apology. It was a challenge.

"I just am."

"You have no concept -"

"I know, I know. I am awful, stupid, all that." How to start itemising the reality of her guilt? She couldn't. Better to revert to type, to all the things Elphaba already thought of her rather than start uncovering new flaws. "I am sorry that I have hurt you. But please, can you not talk to me?"

"I am only making it easier for you to break it off with me."

"Elphaba!" Glinda was half exasperation and half desperation.

Elphaba continued anyway. "As if you need an excuse. This was always your plan."

"Oh, Elphie." The rawness enveloped her.

"No," Elphaba told her, rigid. "You will do what you need to do to do to extricate yourself from this situation and we can forget it ever happened."

That seemed like a moment of hope and Glinda pounced on it. "Do you forgive me then?"

"If I can forget sufficiently then you will have no need of forgiveness."

Glinda would take it, and happily. "Thank you."


	4. Chapter 4

That night Glinda and Nanny went to see her parents off at the station. Elphaba and Nessa were supposed to be doing something about restoring their rooms but, on Glinda and Nanny's return, had only quarrelled. So instead Elphaba spent the night next door in Nanny's old cot and they had achieved a complete swap.

Tiptoeing on eggshells around Elphaba turned out to pretty easy, as oblivious as she generally was and given her preference for solitude at the best of times. Glinda did her best to soothe and mollify but they did not speak directly on the matter for over a week.

When they finally did, Glinda was well aware she was treading on incredibly thin ice

"I am absolutely going to write to my parents to inform them of our sad break-up…"

"Yes?" Elphaba clearly knew her well enough to know she was not going to be happy with this.

"But in the meantime, look, they have given us opera tickets."

"I don't care for the opera."

"Well of course you don't. But I don't suppose it makes a difference that I do? I cannot take Pfannee or Shenshen without one or the other taking offence."

"You would be better to take Nanny the way Morrible has been breathing down our necks."

"Nanny snores far too loudly."

Elphaba put her pen down and looked into the past. "When I was little I had to race to get to sleep before she did or the snoring kept me awake. It rattled the window panes."

Glinda was delighted. "And not just the snoring! I could swear she has full conversations in her sleep."

Elphaba laughed. Some light reminiscing.

Gauging the mood safe, Glinda continued. "Anyway, my parents have thought of a chaperone, here is the third ticket."

"Not very romantic." Elphaba picked up her pen again.

Glinda panicked at Elphaba's withdrawal, so waved some bait. "And what would you know?"

"Little enough, which makes it all the more true."

"Half the fun of a date is escaping the chaperone."

"Take Nessa and Nanny then."

"And leave you here?"

"Do I care?"

"Well no, but I care."

"Why?"

Glinda found she had no concise answer. "I'm not ashamed of you, Elphaba. I don't want you to think I am. Even though I have given you ample reason to think it."

"Can we not just forget about all that?" Elphaba was just about writhing from discomfort which ordinarily Glinda rather enjoyed. "I was being far too dramatic and silly. It is embarrassing to remember."

"You were perfectly justified in everything you said. I know I launched us into this foolish scenario and really, overall, you have been incredibly patient with me."

"Hardly. I was caught off guard, I suppose."

"How so?" Glinda tried to affect an air of nonchalance so as not to put Elphaba off from any disclosures but she was so desperate for any insight that it seemed impossible to remain composed.

"I expected it to be worse than it was, perhaps. I know you have expressed frustrations in the past but your parents seem genuinely to care about you. Even if that is misplaced."

Now it was Glinda's turn to get uncomfortable. "That may be. It is heartening to see this from them though."

"You were not expecting it."

"No." But then Elphaba already knew that, had listened to Glinda's offhand complaints that belied the real pain that her parents did not understand her. "You were not expecting it either."

"I was not expecting them to be quite so gracious to me."

Of course Glinda had always known that, really. That Elphaba put a lot of time and energy into avoiding these scenarios. That Glinda had dragged her into a totally unnecessary chance to be spurned and ridiculed and treated badly. That this reaction was so expected was a little bit heartbreaking and more than a little bit realistic. And Glinda had done it.

She couldn't express that though, own up to her betrayal. Instead, she took a more optimistic approach. "That is where you are consistently and infuriatingly wrong, Elphaba. Any parent should be thrilled to have you as a friend to their child, as a daughter-in-law, even."

"'Even'?" Elphaba quirked an eyebrow. "We need not take this as far as marriage."

"I didn't say _I_ would be happy to marry you," Glinda huffed but Elphaba only smiled. To change the subject: "So will you go to the opera with me, please?"

"I don't suppose I shall get a moment's peace until I do."

* * *

Perhaps as Elphaba had suspected, the opera only opened the floodgates to more presents, more outings and activities that Larena and Highmuster provided or recommended. Glinda read their letters with widening eyes as her mother wrote about their early courtship and her father sent accounts of proposed works in irrigation and the convening of a new merchant's council in Frottica.

Glinda and Elphaba spent evenings poring over blueprints and Pertha Hills charters with books propped up on the desk and the lamp spluttering out in the small hours of the morning.

The fact that Elphaba knew full well Glinda hadn't told her parents was not directly addressed. It just lay there, neither pressing it. Elphaba would press it, if she wanted it pressed, Glinda reasoned. But she didn't. She seemed to be letting Glinda have this a lot longer than Glinda had expected.

What happened then, Glinda didn't know. But as she sat reading the latest letter from her parents Elphaba peered over her shoulder.

"How are your parents, our generous benefactors?"

Her hair tickled against Glinda's ear.

"They still want us to go to Ty Sant," Glinda said absentmindedly.

"They do?" Elphaba pondered on. "Do you want to?"

Glinda did, she really did. She had thought of it so many times, how that might unfold. It had haunted her dreams. At first, enough to wake her in a cold sweat. Before they were friends, how Elphaba would fit into Frottica, the horror of having made her acquaintance. But to take her there anyway, to say, look at what I must put up with, am I not a saint? And then more recently how much that feeling had changed.

"I thought it would be a lark," she said, anticipating but also afraid.

"But?" There was no hiding things from Elphaba.

"Do you want to go?"

"Do you want me to go?"

"Yes. I just - it would be strange."

"To take me?"

"No," she said sternly, nipping that right in the bud. "For you to be there. You would find it strange."

"Would I? I have been to a variety of strange places. I imagine the heart of rural Gillikin cannot be that outrageous."

"Yes, all right, point taken. What I am saying is there are some notions I might need to disabuse you of, lest you be in for a shock."

"Such as?"

"I may have led you to believe, in an effort to put my best foot forward, an so on, that my background was rather more... refined, shall we say, that it actually is."

"Really," Elphaba only said.

Glinda glared at her for being so non-committal. Surely she knew exactly what Glinda meant and was simply not helping at all, not extending a helpful olive branch - she was going to make Glinda spell it out in excruciating detail.

"You know what I am trying to say!"

"Yes, but I do so I enjoy seeing you writhe in distress."

"You are wicked."

"Honesty, remember? Between friends," she added softly. "If I already know and hold nothing against you tell the story and let it out. It will be a new experience for you."

"My family are of considerably less material wealth than I might have suggested."

Elphaba nodded.

Reciting it by heart now. "Though the Arduennas are a noble line the world is a very different one. There were some bad investments, speculation, many years ago, before I was born. The estate is comfortable, I will not deny it. But it is not lavish. My parents are parochial in their interests and outlook."

"Except when it comes to you."

"Why do you say that?"

"Parochial parents do not send their daughter away to a city they dislike for the best education available to a woman in Oz."

"I think that was rather more to their benefit."

"Even if it was, it worked out for your benefit also."

"I suppose."

"You suppose?"

"They want me to make a good match."

"You did," Elphaba reminded her.

Glinda didn't know whether she was allowed to laugh at that. But Elphaba smiled a little, so she did. "Whoever knew you had a sense of humour, Elphaba Thropp. And do you mean to tell me you knew this all along?"

"I began to discern some discrepancies in what little you did say - and that little was telling in and of itself."

"I didn't want to be scorned," Glinda confessed.

"But you used it to scorn me."

"I know and I am sorry. But you saw through me the whole time so it can't have been all that bad."

"No I confess I didn't care at all at first, and now I might care more for you means I care even less about that."

"Oh you, stop, honestly, you will make me blush with such compliments," Glinda goaded. "'Might care more'! I ask you."

"You should take your compliments where you can with me," Elphaba warned. "I ought to save them for when we are in company. I will begin working on them immediately. What ought I compose? An ode to your golden hair? I'm afraid you'd be as likely to get a dirty limerick."

The way Elphaba was talking… Glinda held her breath.

Elphaba must have noticed it too. She looked at Glinda for a moment, then turned. Glinda waited more patiently than she had ever known she was able to.

"I have one condition."

"Name it," Glinda blurted out.

"There is to be no discussion as to my clothes."

Glinda's face twitched.

"No, none. Not as to their quality, quantity, suitability or any other consideration."

"That is your one condition?"

"The only one that I can think of right now. I reserve the right to add more more later."

"Very well."

"You had better confirm our acceptance then."

Glinda could not help herself, she squealed.


	5. Chapter 5

Elphaba had only been on the train from the Emerald City to Shiz, not any further north, so she made to Glinda the excuse that she wished to observe the countryside and sat contemplatively looking out the window.

Glinda wished to appear so sanguine, but could not. She settled for peering through the grime and imagining what Elphaba might be thinking, in lieu of her own great thoughts. But Elphaba would not share hers and the miles rattled by underneath them in silence.

Glinda fetched them tea - Elphaba had refused a first class ticket where they would have been properly waited on but was apparently happy to be waited on by Glinda instead.

So she pointed out as she huffed her way back in to their compartment without Elphaba so much as taking a break from her ruminations to open the door for her, resulting in some of the tea being lost. Glinda gave that lesser cup to Elphaba with no qualms of guilt whatsoever. Unfortunately Elphaba was also too absentminded to notice the slight and sipped the tea uncomplainingly.

Here Glinda's beloved Pertha Hills were beginning to take shape. The whitechalk of the lakes around Shiz giving way to mudstone which would become shaleplate. The trees beginning to change, the darker wood and leaf. The hills bubbled up. The houses low and thatched, the colour of the brickwork changing, the stonework now grey or pale with painted doors and mantles. The Unionist chapels lost spires and gained low halls for congregations. For meeting, for discussion, for community.

This was a topic they had spoken about but today Elphaba would apparently rather ponder it in solitary. Perhaps it was nerves, or some lingering resentment.

Glinda did not like that idea. She was plagued always by the concern of what Elphaba was thinking, how impenetrable her mind was. If she had begun to regret the ruse, regret their very friendship… Glinda's mind ran out of control.

Glinda longed always to ask why, why this? Why any of it? Why did Elphaba put up with all the things Glinda did? The answer - Glinda could not comprehend what the answer might be, so was too afraid to ask.

Too afraid to ask was a persistent complaint that Glinda suffered from. Best not to make a fuss.

So the scenery rocked by. A brief shower washed down the windows, refreshing their view.

The train stopped to take on water at Wiccasand Turning. Glinda hopped out to stretch her legs and buy some peppermint humbugs. Previously on her journey to Shiz she hadn't had any. She had been trying to break from the last vestiges of her childhood.

She stood on the platform for a few minutes. Watching an unknowing and innocent Elphaba through the window.

If she were on her way to Colwen Grounds right now, if their roles were reversed - and thank goodness they were not - she would be quizzing Elphaba on her family, the protocol, trying to glean every last advantageous morsel.

Watching Elphaba, scrutinising her now, Glinda felt an embarrassment, a heat in her face. She returned to the carriage, not on her way to Colwen Grounds, but on her way home.

* * *

As the train arrived at Frottica station Glinda felt herself lifting from her seat. She looked over at Elphaba who had a little smirk going on that might have bothered Glinda except - she realised - she was happy.

She was coming home in a way she had never expected. Excited. And with Elphaba. To be able to show Elphaba around, to share all this with her. The happiness Glinda had known here. Elphaba certainly knew a good deal about the frustrations.

And to see Elphaba in this context - out of context. For her to see Glinda in this new light. It was enough to make Glinda nervous. A nervous excitement.

"Come on," she said to Elphaba, catching at her hand and dragging her from the carriage. Onto the platform, all bustle, steam and rushing. Then her father appeared from among the crowd, guiding a porter.

"Father!" Glinda skipped over and hugged him.

" _Cariad_ , how are you? How was your journey? Your luggage? And Elphaba, so good to see you again my dear."

The porter returned with Glinda's trunk.

"Elphaba, your luggage?"

Glinda went to make excuses but Elphaba held forward her bag and tapped it. "All here," she said, perfectly able to talk for herself.

"Look at that packing!" her father applauded. "Now if only you would influence Glinda. Gracious, child, how long are you planning on staying?"

She took this teasing in good faith. "I heard there might be a dinner or two and I didn't want to look too shabby."

"Never," Elphaba interjected. It was a pleasant surprise for a moment, until Glinda remembered the whole reason why they were there.

"Indeed," Highmuster agreed. "Radiant as ever."

"That's enough of that," Glinda scolded them, loving every moment.

* * *

As they passed through the cobbled streets Elphaba listened and nodded as Glinda pointed out landmarks both of the town and personal. The market, the school, the chapel.

Into the open countryside and Glinda breathed deep. None of the fumes of Shiz. Pure country air for her corrupted lungs.

The carriage wound up the path towards the house past barns and silos, scattering sheep as they went.

"Well?" Glinda asked, unnecessarily nervous.

"Very… rural." Elphaba said. Glinda was not convinced about that, the way Elphaba was scraping for compliments around the bottom of the barrel. Yet as ever, with Elphaba, that was about as good as it was going to get.

Larena was at the the door to welcome them, with a hug for Glinda and for Elphaba too.

" _Croeso_ , welcome," she said to a shuffling and embarrassed Elphaba. "Please, I want you to feel completely at home. Mrs Lyon, our housekeeper, will help you with anything you need, or you can come to me."

Elphaba nodded and mumbled some thanks so Glinda took pity on her.

"I think first of all we should get to our rooms and freshen up. I feel as though I have been dragged through a hedge backwards."

"Of course, of course." Her mother hurried them inside while a groom sorted their luggage.

"Galinda, dear, you are in your room of course and I have put Elphaba in the yellow guest room."

"I'll show her up." Glinda got in first. "Supper at the usual time?"

"Yes. Remember, anything you need just come and find me."

Elphaba was currently engaged in wrestling her case off the groom who was intent on carrying it upstairs.

"It's all right, Alun," Glinda said. "Miss Elphaba is absolutely determined not to be waited on. You can help carry mine though." Glinda began to regret her packing as she heaved the trunk up the staircase. Depositing the blasted thing in the hall she then hustled Elphaba a few doors down.

"This is you." She opened the door onto the very yellow bedroom indeed.

"It's… lovely." Elphaba said.

"Unnecessary, Elphaba. I know it is not. In truth I had rather forgotten we wouldn't be bunking together."

"And your parents?"

"The other corridor off the stairs."

"The east wing?"

"Hardly. Bless them, look, they put you out a wash jug."

"I shan't partake." Elphaba put her bag on the bed. "So, supper. Sounds informal enough, am I going to be horribly surprised?"

"No, I don't think so. We'll be in the dining room but simple enough food. No real courses to speak of. Cook doesn't live on the farm so evenings tend to be lighter if we are not entertaining."

"Will we be entertaining?

"I imagine so. My parents will want to show you off."

Elphaba picked up her suitcase again and turned to the door.

Glinda blocked her way. "Honestly, you goose, what did you think we were doing here?"

"Meeting your parents? More meeting of your parents, I mean."

"Well that's true but maybe a few other people. I did try to warn you. Relax. It'll be fine. You'll be fine."

"It's me though, isn't it."

"I know. But you needn't worry. My parents like you."

"They think you like me," Elphaba clarified.

Glinda could not answer that sufficiently. "In any case. The most interesting about you here in this situation is not that you are the heir of an exotic and mysterious Munchkin dynasty nor that you are awkward and different or budding revolutionary or even that you are green -"

"You know me so well," Elphaba interjected wryly.

"But that I, Glinda of the Arduennas of the Uplands, have chosen you to court over all the hundreds of well bred Gillikinese boys that Shiz has to offer."

"Of course if they had _met_ any of those wellbred Gillikinese boys they would change their minds," Elphaba snorted.

"Not even that."

"Don't start again with it not being all that surprising nonsense," Elphaba pleaded. "Leave me in peace to ponder what I have gotten myself into."

Glinda pursed her lips. "Very well. Bear in mind we are rather high up onto a flagstone courtyard so the window offers little opportunity to escape and I shall hear you passing my bedroom door if you try - I shall leave it ajar for the particular purpose of catching you."

"Not while you are getting changed?"

"Just you try me Elphaba Thropp. I didn't drag you all the way up here to lose you on the first evening."

Glinda left and went to her bedroom. Nothing had changed in the room but it belonged to a different person and she was unsure where to put herself.

What had she gotten herself into? What had she gotten Elphaba into? Elphaba's jangled, tense nervousness was rubbing off on Glinda now, when she had forced herself in such an air of calm. A fake air of calm.

Maybe it was realistic to be on edge, bringing someone home for the first time. Certainly it made sense for Elphaba to be nervous. It was proper and good that she was, lest anyone think she were not taking the situation seriously enough. Of course, Glinda knew how to behave as little as Elphaba did. She had never done it, nor seen it done. Not that her parents were in the habit either.

She unpacked some of her things, changed her dress and wiped her face. She paused in the corridor to see if she could hear anything from Elphaba's room: a faint rustling proving it was still occupied. She instinctively went to move in that direction, but no. Downstairs she must go.

In the parlour her father sat with his pipe and some papers.

"Hello, sweetheart," he said. "All well?"

"Yes, fine, thank you, Don't get up. What are you looking at?"

"News from the markets."

"Bad news?"

"Not as bad as it could be," he smiled. "No need for business though, now you are home. How is Elphaba?"

"She is just straightening her things. She likes to be… neat. I suppose you will say you wished that had rubbed off on me too.

"Not at all. You should be relaxed. You are at home."

The extent to which she still felt like a guest - a familiar guest but a guest all the same, was not something she could share. "Where is mother?"

"In the dining room I believe. She has been looking forward to your coming." His earnestness was too much for Glinda to bear.

So she went to find her mother in the dining room inspecting cutlery. "Everything all right?"

"Yes, fine. It's nice to be home." Based on what she had just heard it seemed her mother might like to hear that.

"It's very nice to have you home. You know, you do not need to wait for an invitation," her mother prompted. "It is your home, you can come whenever you like."

Glinda nodded. "I know." She did not. "I just get busy with school."

"You are a good girl, you work hard."

"I try. Elphaba leaves me constantly scrambling to catch up."

"And no doubt you help her to relax," her mother said. "That is a good thing, that you can balance each other out."

"I never thought about it like that."

"We don't have such practical rationale for young love."

Glinda remembered that yes, that was supposed to be the case. So she ought to be able think about this all far more rationally than she was. She sat and talked with her mother until she heard the stairs creaking heralding Elphaba arriving.

She called out to her to come into the dining room. "Yoohoo, we are in here."

Elphaba loitered in the doorway. Glinda went over to her, hand on her back, and guided her to a seat. Her mother was watching their interaction but not in upset, or looking to find offence. Just interest, curiosity, a motherly concern.

Larena called to Highmuster. And, "Glinda, will you help me bring the food up from the kitchen?"

Elphaba shook her head wildly behind Larena's back while Highmuster sat down. Glinda shrugged prettily and tripped after her mother.

On Glinda's return both her father and Elphaba were fiddling with the cutlery. Her father sprang up to help with the food. As her parents served up at the sideboard, Glinda leant in towards Elphaba. She touched Elphaba's hand very lightly but Elphaba still jerked away.

"Your parents are watching," Elphaba hissed.

"Watching to see how in love we are although they could be forgiven for thinking we are not, what with the wide berth you are giving me."

It didn't come naturally to Elphaba - what did?

"Just do as you would do if you were in love with someone." But Elphaba continued to keep her distance and barely suppress a look of permanent panic.

They finally started to eat but it was only a clock tick until her mother lead with, "Elphaba…" in a foreboding tone that signalled further conversation was forthcoming.

Poor Elphaba had her spoon halfway to her mouth but stopped abruptly.

"Do you visit your family often?"

"Well, my sister and Nanny are at Shiz, of course. So we see a good deal of them. My father and my brother are on the road a lot. It's not very convenient."

"That's a shame. Your father must be so proud of you and your sister."

"Yes."

Glinda put her hand on Elphaba's and this time there was no withdrawal.

"And how did he react to your news?"

"Oh, Elphaba has not announced the news to her family, yet." Glinda slid into the conversation. "You remember I told you her father is a Unionist minister."

"It's not that it would be a problem," Elphaba said quickly.

That had seemed like rather a good cover so Glinda was annoyed Elphaba had blown it.

Elphaba continued. "I could hardly believe it myself, for so long." She looked at Glinda in such a way that Glinda felt caught up in this fairytale romance being invoked. "It was just the two of us. In our own world."

"That's beautiful." Larena rubbed at her eye and Glinda felt similarly for no good reason at all. "I'm sure he will be very happy for you."

"He should," Elphaba asserted. Almost gossipy, she added, "My mother's family did not really approve of my father."

Highmuster smiled and reached his hand across the table to take Larena's.

"Really?" Glinda was intrigued. "Papa was disapproved of?"

"Only at first," Larena said. "Your grandparents soon came around."

"After a decade or two," Highmuster revealed.

Larena swatted at him. "But here we all are now. We can leave all that messiness in the past."

Glinda felt she hardly knew these people and yet there was nothing new. She had simply never asked these questions, never been such a blank slate, never come to Elphaba or her parents with a lack of expectation or agenda.

It was all _most_ intriguing.

* * *

Glinda lay in bed wide awake as she had when first arrived at Shiz. Then she had been kept awake by the veritable cacophony of the city. All the noise of a hundred other people's lives, the scrapes and knocks, the sound of pipes and rattling window frames, the occasional cart in the street late at night, or riotous group of young male students who had no curfew to contend with, the distant sound of pubs, factory whistles, the far off train station, all the noises of a big city that drifted though the night. They had kept her awake then and the absence of them kept her awake now.

The silence here seemed oppressive. The call of an owl, shriek of a fox or the cats fighting each other in the barn instead of fighting the mice. Those startled her now. The sounds of nature were nightmarish, a visceral reaction that a few years away had reset completely.

And the absence of the lump of Elphaba in the bed nearby, that Glinda could always make out in the moonlight that streamed through the thin curtains of their room. Either room, their new or old. Elphaba was always there. To be able to hear her breathing, the very occasional toss or turn - Elphaba slept like the dead - more likely the rustle of turning pages late into the night. Now nothing.

She thought about lighting her lamp and reading, she though about counting sheep. But what she did was sit up, put her feet in her slippers, don a dressing gown and slip out her bedroom door.

The corridor was dark and grey. The floorboards would creak terribly, she concentrated on staying close to the wall, running her hands along it, watching her step. Then a figure in the dim light. Glinda immediately recognised the shape - all height and angles - even in the dark. "What are you doing?" she hissed.

"What are you doing?" Elphaba replied, rather more amused.

"I was going to pay you a visit."

"At one o'clock in the morning?"

"Well you are clearly still awake so I don't see what's so strange about that. And where are you going exactly?"

"To pilfer the silverware, obviously."

"You were coming to see if I was still awake."

Elphaba looked indignant. "As it happens, yes.

Glinda felt triumphant for some reason. "Your room then, come on." She took Elphaba's elbow and turned her around. She opened the door to the guest room carefully and closed it just as carefully with a gentle click. Elphaba's lamp was on, a pile of books at the foot of her bed. Glinda picked one up. " _Fundamentals of Geologic Conversion_ \- I would have thought this would have bored you to sleep quick enough."

"Try it if you like, Elphaba offered. Glinda held onto it as she kicked off her slippers and got into the bed. Elphaba stood.

"Come on," Glinda instructed. "It's too cold out there."

Evidently that was persuasion enough and Elphaba was tucked in beside her immediately. Glinda cleared her throat, though quietly. "'The viscous properties of mudstone rock under laboratory conditions…' - Elphaba, by Lurline, this isn't even about Life Sciences. Are you reading this for fun?"

"It's all related." Elphaba did not deny it.

Glinda yawned. "The strata comprises elemental forces - Goodness, I can't go on."

"I like it," Elphaba said from the pillow.

"I'll bet you do," Glinda said drolly. "How about some practical knowledge? In the Hills they have mined shaleplate for hundreds of years and the outcrops are covered with remnants of long abandoned mines. The first railways and most of these branch lines were built for the mines - not for passenger transport."

"Nothing like have a native at my disposal. Can we go?"

"To the ancient shaleplate mines to slip and slide in the scree?"

Elphaba looked eager.

"No, my parents would have my guts for garters if I brought you up here - from Shiz of all places - only to see the dirt and grime of industry. We are agrarian, cultured folk, don't you know."

"Very genteel."

"High praise," she shot back.

The book had fallen from her hands, they lay facing one another on the pillow.

Glinda wanted - but she had lain at Elphaba's side before. Not this close, not in the flicker of gas light, so far away from everything they had shared together.

And really what Glinda intended to do? The plan had ended at getting to Elphaba's side. And Elphaba had been doing the same. She had been creeping down the hall too, much as she might like to pretend she was simply taking a late night constitutional.

So silly. So… Glinda closed eyes against it for a moment and Elphaba shifted - sending alarm through Glinda's veins. Her eyes snapped open but Elphaba was twisted in the other direction and then the lamp went out.

"Oh," Glinda said, stupidly.

"Sorry," said Elphaba. "I thought you were falling asleep."

Maybe Glinda could now, there was a dull ache in her muscles and an emptiness that must be fatigue catching up with her.

Elphaba rolled so that Glinda could only see a sharp escarpment of shoulder looming in front of her.

"Night."


	6. Chapter 6

Just as Glinda began to register the bellowing cows early in the morning she received a prod. "Hm?"

"Should you go back to your room?"

"No." She wriggled contentedly under the quilts.

"What if someone comes looking for you?"

"Then they'll assume I have gone out somewhere." Only at this point did Glinda crack open a bleary eye. "I slept well at least. "

And Elphaba softened. "Yes." That was worth it.

"I can't believe you are ejecting me from a room in my own house!" Glinda grumbled as she got out of bed and readjusted the dressing gown she had slept in.

"I need to get dressed."

"Never bothered you before." But Glinda poked a cautious head out in to the hall and scurried back to her room. As though they had been doing something somehow illicit. But the giddiness she felt seemed to indicate that too.

They did not go to the old shaleplate mines or see the branch railway. But Glinda did at least negotiate them out her mother's proposed trip into Frottica in favour of walking to the next valley over to see the new dam under construction. The hamlet there was to be sunk and there was a pretty church she should like to see one last time. Plus it would give Elphaba something to ponder, pitch destruction and heritage against progress and innovation.

As suspected it did get Elphaba expounding at length. It also bore their accompanying chaperone so much that she dropped ever further behind.

The weather was fine. Clear blue skies and a brisk wind whipped over the hills. They picnicked on a moth-eaten rug looking down into the valley. Elphaba's hair wrapped in a scarf still blew all over and Glinda had tonne of hat pins weighing her down but still lived in fear of losing the thing.

Thoroughly windswept and with Glinda rosy cheeked they were hurried on through the afternoon then by Larena and dispatched to get ready for the evening's entertainment.

It was to be hosted by some distant branch of the Arduennas in their larger house on the other side of Frottica. A real carriage was being dispatched.

Larena said everyone was very much looking forward to seeing Glinda again and hearing about her studies and of course to meeting Elphaba, the Thropp Third Descending. Apparently someone there had once met the Eminent Thropp himself.

"That's nice," Elphaba said quietly to Glinda. "I wonder what he is like?"

Glinda swatted at her. "You will behave? Do you need to come down with a chill from the walk?"

"I do not," Elphaba said archly.

"Well I am going to get myself dressed. Will you be able to stay out of trouble?"

"Probably not."

"I might need to keep you under observation. Would you like to come examine my bookshelves while I get ready?"

The briefest hesitation. "Yes."

Glinda left the door open out of some sense of propriety but no-one was going to come past. Elphaba studiously picked over the books and didn't turn around. It was impossible for Glinda to do anything but watch until she moved across and leant against the bookcase. "What's wrong?"

"I don't understand this organisational system."

"There isn't one." She breezed through it. "Do you not want to do this? I am serious about saying you are ill."

"I want to."

Why? every part of Glinda longed to know.

"Just…"

"Yes?"

"You won't let me get cornered?" Elphaba finally said and how much she was trying to hide the panic melted Glinda's heart.

It made her brave. "I promise I will protect you. You have my word." It was too dramatic. Elphaba was looking at her strangely.

It was necessary to backpedal, and quickly. "I don't suppose you will be getting dressed but having inspected my bookshelves you can either stay and help me or if I need to recruit my mother you will have to make yourself scarce."

"I will fetch her," Elphaba offered. "I might just borrow this… And this too. And do you have the second volume of this?" She raided Glinda's library and made off with an armful. Clearly it was not that deficient.

Glinda dressed in a very mature blue ensemble and when she came downstairs was pleasantly surprised to see Elphaba had in fact changed out of her usual smock. Granted she looked rather like an unfortunately pitied elderly spinster aunt but at least one that belonged at the hall of a respectable house like their destination.

She hesitated to mention it at all, to draw any attention. But the instinct overcame her. "You look nice," she murmured as they headed to the carriage.

Her parents were arm in arm in front so she took Elphaba's arm too.

Elphaba, rigid, gaze fixed ahead, said, "As do you," though Glinda was sure she had hardly glanced.

* * *

The affair was more modest than Glinda had dared to hope. A convivial local band of musicians with the traditional male choir to give a few rousing renditions. Cards in the parlour, a supper in the dining room and dancing in the drawing room.

Glinda and Elphaba were passed from elderly relative to elderly neighbour and back again.

"So delighted to hear your news," they were told over and over. The delicate euphemism of it didn't even concern Glinda at all.

Everyone was so kind. Three years ago when she had been accepted to Shiz there had been such a gathering when she had received similar attentions and was ashamed to remember how tiresome she had found it. She had enjoyed the attention due to her by her obvious talents, but it was also tedious.

It was touching that the whole village knew of her exploits - though not that infamy she had craved when she left. Also something of a pressure to feel herself representing so many people. They talked about the other girls in the village, younger girls now with aspirations.

Glinda found she did not have to work hard to affect a tantamount-to-adoring gaze for Elphaba, so impressed and moved was she by Elphaba's genuine attempt to interact with everyone. Even when they got a little separated, when the conversations fractured into two, Elphaba held her own.

Elphaba had censure and haughtiness and derision enough by Glinda could see now that was reserved for the bombastic, the snobs, bigots at Shiz and in higher society than this. After all, how could one survive the Ovvels looking down one's nose, especially such an imperious nose as Elphaba's own?

"Young Elphaba can hardly keep her eyes off you," Glinda was told more than once.

So Glinda directed looks of genuine fondness and Elphaba, apparently embarrassed whenever she caught one, smiled shyly in a most attractive manner. Their companions cooed and patted their hands and wished them well.

Elphaba was also performing the part of a suitor more than admirably. When they converged in conversation again Elphaba's hand rested on Glinda's shoulder.

Already that felt intimate enough but then her hand drifted across her neck, her other shoulder. Light enough to be barely be there, that maybe Glinda's fevered mind had dreamt it up. Maybe this was a dream.

Why she should be dreaming about Elphaba touching her in such a dramatically intimate way way unclear. But then, any touch from Elphaba would feel dramatically intimate. Considering it never happened. But this was the pretence: Glinda had basically told her to. She was only following orders.

Too distracted, Glinda had to remove the offending hand herself and pivot around.

There was no indication on Elphaba's face of daring or mischievousness or anything at all really. She was blank and innocent. Possibly too blank and innocent. She caught Glinda's eye and raised a quizzical brow at her - bluffing, too innocent indeed.

Glinda raised one back.

Elphaba shrugged.

The matter was settled.

Later, Elphaba solicitously put her hand on Glinda's arm to ask if she wanted a drink.

It was exactly what Glinda had been urging Elphaba towards and now she hardly knew what to do with herself.

Glinda wandered, while Elphaba was lost in the crowd. She was thinking to check in with one parent or the other and skirted round a crowd of gentlemen.

It wasn't that she was eavesdropping but the loud guffaws were hard to avoid.

"Exactly that. Send the brat off to university I can understand, but I'd be asking for my money back at this result."

"I should say it was money well spent," was Glinda's contribution as the convened faces turned to horror. "Made a woman of me, in more ways than one," and she sauntered off.

Elphaba - not hard to pick out - approached and handed over the drink. "Quite all right?"

"Perfect," she beamed, steering her away from the scene. "There's Mother, come on."

"Girls!" her mother exclaimed. "How are you enjoying the party?"

Rather more than she had expected. "Everyone's been so nice," Glinda said. If not nice then truthful, at least.

Larena blinked, flustered for a moment. As though she wasn't sure why that would otherwise be, but of course she did know.

Glinda, perhaps still feeling a little combative, added, "Aren't you just a little bit surprised?"

Her mother hemmed and hawed but Elphaba stepped in.

"At their open mindedness? Perhaps. Or their good breeding overrides their prejudices."

"I'm sure it's not just that," Larena laughed nervously.

"No," Elphaba reassured her. "You're probably right."

"Thank you for your very qualified support," Glinda said to Elphaba. It was hard for Elphaba, she tried to remember.

Larena was marooned between them, only the mildest of panic behind her eyes. "Now are you going to ask Elphaba to dance? I don't know what the etiquette is exactly but as she is your guest you could make the invitation."

Looking at Elphaba to gauge her reaction was entirely unnecessary. "I don't think Elphaba will want to dance. Trying to work out the etiquette is a purely academic exercise."

"Quite right," Elphaba managed to put in.

It didn't seem that her mother would push the issue, probably having suggested it purely for the change of subject.

To dance with Elphaba. The thought!

Glinda looked at the couples on the floor. Then back at Elphaba, and took a deep breath. "Would you like to dance?"

Elphaba was genuinely taken aback. It was delightful.

"So do you?" Glinda asked again.

"You aren't serious?"

"Completely. Will you do me the honour?"

It must have been the surprise, was all Glinda could credit. Because Elphaba said yes. Blurted it out, helpless and confused. So Glinda gave her no time for reconsidering, taking Elphaba's hand - clammy - and taking it with her to the floor, trusting that the rest of Elphaba would follow. It did.

"I don't…" Elphaba trailed off. Glinda, business-like, took Elphaba's other hand and put it on her shoulder, placing her hand on Elphaba's hip. It was only a jig. It would be fine. "Dance with me," she murmured, encouraging.

"Everyone's watching."

"Because they want to see us happy." Glinda put on the smile but it was real too. It was so real, the warmth in her.

The music started. The rest of the dancers moved. Glinda moved too, and, miraculously, Elphaba continued to follow.

The swing, back and forth, had a hypnotic effect. She didn't care any more about people watching, about people talking. What could they say to intrude on this? There was nothing. The warmth, the music, creating a heady feeling of complete safety.

To look into Elphaba's eyes the background became a blur. Just a candlelight glow, dark edges, a murmur of indiscernible voices.

It wasn't real. Some of it was real. Only Elphaba, only this.

Now, here, reality faded around the edges. The world, melting. Just the lone figure of Elphaba to guide the way. Glinda could feel the music throbbing in her heart, her heart beat in her palms against Elphaba's hands. Elphaba's heartbeat, even.

As the last notes faded the hubbub grew with laughter and discussion of the dance, barely registering with Glinda.

As Elphaba stepped forward, alarming Glinda for a moment until Elphaba's mouth closed on her own and Elphaba's hands on her arms, holding her close, holding to her, holding her.

The alarm slipped away, then rushed back in. Glinda clasped feebly at Elphaba's blouse. A long moment, the searing heat of it until Elphaba relaxed her grip and stepped sideways, contrite and shy.

"Surprises all round," Glinda murmured, poking Elphaba a little. Canoodling, like a young couple in love.

"It seemed fitting," Elphaba confessed.

"A nice job on that," Glinda noted.

Finally she looked up to see her mother beaming at them, others smiling.

"I think that is all the limelight I can bear," Elphaba said.

"I agree. A few moments and I shall ask mother to leave."

"I'm going to the patio, get some fresh air."

"All right."

There was a moment, a hesitation as Elphaba turned, where Glinda was not sure what she should do, or what Elphaba might do. That Elphaba, ever the master of surprise, might try to kiss her again, or even just an affectionate peck on the cheek. She did not, though she lingered, Glinda leaning forward slightly in anticipation.

Glinda's hand trailed Elphaba's, dropping down as Elphaba got too far away.

"Is Elphaba all right?" Larena popped up at Glinda's side.

But she was hardly ready to return to the world. Vague and absent minded, she replied, "A little warm after the dance."

"Is she ready to go home?"

"I think I am too."

"Very well, I shall find your father and make our farewells."

Glinda nodded mutely, still looking in the direction Elphaba had gone.


	7. Chapter 7

No sooner had the family set foot in the hall back at Ty Sant than Elphaba retired to bed. She was halfway up the stairs as she made her good nights but not before giving Glinda's hand a quick squeeze. Highmuster also said good night but Glinda was still gazing up the stairs when her mother said, "What a lovely evening."

"Yes," Glinda agreed, not entirely convinced it was not all a dream.

There was a quiet, comfortable haze. Glinda fancied she could still hear the music from the party.

"It's been a lovely weekend," her mother continued.

"Yes." Glinda's attention was drawn now by her mother's nervous demeanour.

"Shall we sit?" Larena gestured to the parlour. "I'm so glad you could come - and your father too - that you could come."

Glinda took a seat, finding herself unfazed that a Conversation of Importance was gathering quickly on the horizon.

"I am sorry that you did not come before. I feared after you left that I had lost you."

"No, Mama."

Larena twisted her hands in her lap. "It would only have been my own fault."

Glinda frowned. She had been a different person when she left. And no longer knew how that person fitted in here. She had believed herself destined for great things and it excited her. Now the responsibility of knowing the great things that must be done terrified her. But Glinda stayed quiet, allowing this to unfold.

"My own fault if - after experiencing more of the world - you realised how limited you were here. So that you no longer wanted to return."

"This is my home," Glinda said gently.

"You have to understand, I only wanted the best for you."

Well, that didn't sound good at all.

Half of Glinda's mind was still located upstairs following Elphaba through her bedtime routine. Glinda knew it so well after all. She was just beginning to regret not having followed Elphaba upstairs - in equal parts to be out of this increasingly uncomfortable situation, and to just be in Elphaba's company some more.

Now, finally, it seemed her mother was ready to begin dismantling her daughter's romance. It was a pity, Glinda had genuinely believed - hoped, dared to dream - that there might be some real compassion there.

"I have made so many mistakes," Larena continued.

Glinda shut her eyes and allowed herself a little laugh. At her own trusting stupidity.

Larena continued, fumbling through her words. "I thought, when you were younger, that if we did not talk about it we could avoid it somehow. I was worried about how it might impact your life. How it might make things difficult for you. But that was wrong of me. Made you think it was something shameful. I thought I only wanted the best for you. But perhaps it was what was best for me, more preferable at least. Until I realised we might lose you. And that this - Elphaba - is best for you."

Glinda's eyes opened. They nearly popped from her skull.

"I am so happy for you sweetheart."

"Thank you," she managed to say.

She sat there, waiting it seemed. All this time, all this pretence. Mismatched fears and concerns. All for what? For a lie. To have to rescind it all. But she would still have this - an openness she could never have dreamt of. Too bad it was doomed, that Glinda had extracted it on a falsehood.

Glinda collected herself as much as she could. Which was not very much at all. "You knew when I was younger?"

"Well, I suspected."

"I didn't," Glinda said simply. "I didn't know."

"I'm sorry. It must have all been very difficult and I should have been here for you. You have my and your father's support, always. We are so very proud of you, of everything you do. And I am so sorry for how I must have made you feel that wasn't so."

Glinda's mind darted through her memories, testing each one for some sign of what her mother thought she saw. There was only ignorance.

* * *

The train rocked gently and Glinda flicked idly through her newspaper, wrestling with the armful of cheap paper and smearing ink on her hands. Until she allowed it to crumple and deflate into her lap.

Elphaba, watching her from over the top of her own copy: "Everything all right?"

"Yes," Glinda sighed with enough drama to ensure even Elphaba would continue to probe.

Elphaba accordingly put down her paper. "Are you concerned about something? Did the weekend not go as planned?"

"It went well, don't you think?"

"I thought it went well."

"Did you enjoy it?"

Elphaba glanced back to the safety of her paper. "Enjoy is perhaps a strong word."

"You survived."

"Indeed." Then, "I did enjoy it. I liked seeing your home and seeing you with your family."

"It's different to spend time away from Shiz." The only time they had done was the disastrous visit to Caprice in the Pines their first summer. That hardly counted. "It's a pity we won't be able to do it again."

"Oh?" Elphaba was being deliberately innocuous in a way that seemed transparent now that Glinda knew precisely how much guile she possessed.

"I mean, how much longer would we keep this up?"

"You are right of course. It must be drawn to a close at some point."

"Do you think now? Would now be the time to do that?" It was as though Glinda were picking at a healing wound. Deliberately to cause herself pain.

"I wouldn't want your parents to feel any burden of it having been due to the weekend."

Glinda considered this. "No, you are quite right. They might worry. So… after a little while?"

"I suppose the right time will come to us."

"Yes. You don't have any particular feelings as to when?"

"No," Elphaba said, the picture of unconcerned innocence.

"And in the meantime?"

"I am happy to continue as we were in Shiz. Only your family know, it concerns no-one else."

"No, you are right. As long as you are happy. I realise what an imposition I have put you under."

"Not at all," Elphaba demurred. "It has has been a very educational experience."

"Hasn't it just," Glinda exhaled. "Who knew the Pertha Hills were a hotbed of such sympathies. Why does no-one talk about this?"

"Deny women their power and autonomy. Why do you do you think do you think they shut maunts away in those dusty old buildings, away from view and out of earshot?"

"Maunteries are hotbeds of _sympathetic_ tendencies too?"

"No, no, I mean women's power. Although, maybe, who knows?"

Glinda was slightly alarmed by this prospect. Maybe the initial instinct to run away to a mauntery had been more accurate than she knew.

How did Elphaba feel about it all though?

"Did you know of it, growing up? My mother talked to me about it last night. She apologised - for keeping knowledge of such things from me as a child."

"Did she? That was nice. Misplaced, but nice."

"The point still stands," Glinda dared. "She ought to have told me. Did you know?"

Elphaba looked at her for a steady clock tick.

"I have told you before about my mother's lover, Nessa's real father, the Quadling Turtle Heart?"

"Yes." One time, late at night, when Elphaba was stewing about her father's favoritism.

"We all knew Turtle Heart was Nessa's father. But my father adored her."

Yes, that had seemed odd.

"Because my father loved Turtle Heart too. It wasn't an affair, as such. They all lived together."

Oh. "Why didn't you ever say?"

"It never seemed relevant."

"If it happened to you it is relevant to me," Glinda assured her. "Did they ever talk about it?"

"Not in so many words. But it was real and I know it was not so exceptional. Then once Turtle Heart was killed and my mother died there was no asking Father about any of it."

"That's awful."

Elphaba shrugged. "No more awful than happens to people all over Oz every day."

"Well, I don't care as much about all the unnamed people as I do about you."

"It's not my tragedy, it's theirs. They are dead. It taught me…"

"What?" Glinda held her breath.

"That there are no happy endings, I suppose." The practicality with which Elphaba delivered the line was chillingly impersonal.

"No, Elphaba, that's terrible."

"Never mind it."

Glinda did not want her to get away with so abruptly abandoning such an important conversation. Not out of prurient interest, she would have you know, but genuine affection.

It seemed clear to Glinda that their weekend had bonded them. Some of the residual emotion lingered around them in a cloud. Would Elphaba ever have revealed so much in any other situation? Maybe she felt it as well. A layer had been shed, a wall removed from between them, a distance closed, first by the weekend and now by this.

And Elphaba did not want to end their performance immediately. She was content for whatever reasons to have it continue apparently indefinitely. What did that mean? What did that reveal of her thinking? Very little, for Elphaba's line of thought was likely to be too incomprehensibly advanced for Glinda to make the slightest attempt at guessing.

"I'm sorry if it seemed I was trivialising these things," Glinda managed to say.

Elphaba raised an eyebrow.

"You know, making it up and subjecting myself to this sort of scrutiny - and yourself. Like I thought it was a joke. I don't think it is a joke."

"Noted," Elphaba said. Rebuffing any attempt Glinda would try to make it personal somehow.

They discussed deep subjects but in many respects they knew very little of each other's lives. Glinda had not known that rather central insight into the family structure Elphaba had grown up with. How open-minded that seemed. And yet they had still been unable to be open about so many things. A gulf that Elphaba still suffered from.

Glinda wanted to be able to prove that wrong, but what happy ending did she have to offer Elphaba? The world had dashed most of Glinda's expectations since being at Shiz.

Elphaba expected nothing but dashed hopes so did not dare to hope them.

"It's all very complicated," Glinda grumbled instead.

Elphaba managed to look a little bit sympathetic about it, as though Glinda was only now cottoning onto a truth Elphaba had comprehended since birth.


	8. Chapter 8

Glinda was shaken awake.

"What in heaven's name is it?" she asked, grumpy on several counts.

Elphaba need only say one word to get Glinda out of bed and on her feet. "Morrible."

They both hurried to the door to press themselves against it.

"I heard her knock on Nessa's door," Elphaba whispered.

The low murmur of Morrible and Nanny conversing, then a shuffle and a knock much closer sent them reeling back. They looked at each other, holding as long as they dared. Until Elphaba broke, stepped forward, and opened the door.

There was Madame Morrible with Nanny barely visible in the door frame behind her.

"Girls," Morrible intoned, as though this fact were especially troubling. "I see some unauthorised room changes have already started. And yet, there is more inconvenience to come. One of you will be packing her belongings and removing herself to a dormitory. Immediately. Honestly, if you think I do not have protocol in place then you are more naive than you look. Why is it always the roommate?" she lamented. "So much more administration to do!"

Elphaba and Glinda looked at one another.

"May I ask -" Elphaba began - though Morrible's face already indicated she had better not - "how you came to find out about this?" What, exactly, needed no explanation or question.

"It is my business to know all that concerns my charges," Morrible said grandly. "Out of interest, I made inquiries into your business in Frottica this past weekend. Been making quite the impression on your countryfolk, Miss Glinda.

"That was a private affair," Glinda huffed.

"When you are under my care and the reputation of this venerable institution depends on it I am afraid you have no privacy."

That seemed useless to argue against. It was the Madame's reason for being, her whole identity.

"Does anyone else know?"

"I suspect the gossipy fronds extend down the railway even now. If you were intent on being discreet - I live in hope! - you ought to have avoided balls, dances, appearances, certainly public _displays_ \- that would have been sensible. Alas, you are all fools when it comes to love. I have to say, I had no prior concerns as to your rooming together. Just goes to show."

Nanny now came to the forefront. "Would you like to explain the situation to our good Head?" She was looking daggers at them.

Glinda looked at Elphaba. Their resolutions on the train had not been made in the expectation of this occurrence. Did they stand? Glinda could not tell Elphaba's emotions at the best of times. But if she was going to make her confession, now was the time. So she gestured to Elphaba, hoping to convey that it was her choice, her decision to make. Elphaba's shoulders shifted and she turned to Madame Morrible.

"I shall remove myself to the dormitory."

Something flooded through Glinda, some sort of relief or happiness that Elphaba was not only not going to reveal Glinda's deceit but was willing to put herself out for it yet again.

"Don't be foolish, Elphie," she said, stepping forward. "You should stay here with Nessa and Nanny. I will go."

Nanny threw up her hands and left the room muttering.

"Very well. I expect you to be at your classes as usual and for Miss Glinda to be installed in the Yellow Dormitory tonight. Preparations will be made for your arrival. Leave this door open," was Morrible's final instruction as she left.

"Elphaba, I am so sorry," Glinda rushed to say. "I never meant for anyone -"

"It's all right. She's put out, she's not throwing us out. Besides, you are the one who has to move. Again." Elphaba looked at her and Glinda hoped it might be some sort of appreciation or fondness. But again, it was hard to tell. Or was Elphaba enjoying Glinda getting her just desserts for all the nonsense?

Now she was voluntarily heading into the dormitories when she had done so much to keep herself from them. "I'm half-packed still and won't need too many things. After all, it won't be for long," Glinda said, more cheerfully than she actually felt. By several orders of magnitude.

"We can admit to this," Elphaba said gently.

"No. We will continue the plan. Perhaps bring it to a resolution sooner rather than later."

"As you wish."

They did not speak much until departing for class. Glinda felt a dread. A new version of dread - she was becoming quite the expert. At the looming horrors of dormitory life? At the exposure? None of that seemed quite right.

* * *

Glinda reported to her new living quarters at the end of the day with her still-packed luggage and did not leave them for the remainder of the evening. There was no reason she could not go to the Buttery as normal to meet Elphaba, Nessa, and Nanny but did not feel able, somehow. So she sat and studied and tried to keep her nagging and insistent mind at bay.

The night was long but the day had been uneventful. She had received several alarmed looks on arriving at the dormitory but no-one said anything that intimated they knew why.

Not appearing at breakfast seemed to prompt the visit from Elphaba. Arriving in the dormitory, looking curiously about, spotting Glinda.

"I don't think you should be here," Glinda said, desperately pleased to see her.

Elphaba, by way of an answer, waved her hand at the general bustling in and out. She sat at the table and the unfortunate Ama kept a close watch on them. It was hardly an opportunity to get up to anything. Little anyone knew.

"Has anyone said anything to you?"

Elphaba shook her head.

"Does Nessa know?"

"Nanny told her. The truth. She is of course furiously angry. At the deception -" she seemed to hurry to say.

"Not about the idea… of you and I?"

"I don't know. She doesn't have to consider that, knowing the truth."

Of course it concerned Glinda that Nessa would have reacted badly. That she only knew the truth meant Glinda would never have to have the question answered and she was both simultaneously glad and put out.

"You can eat, though," Elphaba pointed out. "You need not cloister yourself away. The boys are back from their latest excursion, will you be joining us at the pub tonight?"

"I don't think so," she sighed, affecting some sort of sufferance for no good reason.

Elphaba rolled her eyes. "We should come clean if it is causing you such distress."

"No, it's not that."

"What then?"

"I'm sorry you had to face Nessa on your own."

"Come tonight then. So I won't be on my own."

"You make a very persuasive case." Elphaba was sort of charming, really, Glinda contemplated.

"It will be fine."

Glinda smiled at her. "I wish I had your confidence. In this, not in general. Your confidence, in general, is horrible." Then, "Thank you." She had not meant to expel the words so forcefully, with such unbridled emotion behind them. They startled her. They startled Elphaba too, who only nodded.

* * *

It did not take Glinda the walk from the dormitory to her first class to realise Elphaba's confidence in their situation had been wildly misplaced.

Two and two had been put together and much had been made of it. The Yellow Dormitory girls, previously shunned by others, made celebrities of themselves with their insider knowledge, though they had little enough to share.

Glinda remembered her mother's instruction from long ago. "Head up, shoulders back." She sailed into uncomfortable situation after uncomfortable situation. To be looked at, wasn't that all she had ever wanted? Funny how events conspired. Wishes that carried unforeseen ramifications.

She wondered how Elphaba was holding up.

* * *

Glinda began and aborted several attempts to arrive at the Peach and Kidneys. First, she talked herself out of the expedition, then once she had summoned her resolve it was hard to get away from the dormitory ama and in the meantime she talked herself back out of it again.

Eventually, she walked close to a group of girls and their amas and disappeared out of the imposing front door, peeling off once she was further towards town.

On entering the pub she almost turned back round again. But Elphaba was there, with a sideways glance and discreet roll of her fingers in a wave.

She nodded to Elphaba as she approached, drawing out a chair quietly and trying not to disturb the flow of conversation or draw attention.

The talk bubbled on around her, though Nessa would not meet her eye. That is, until Pfannee and Shenshen arrived.

"Sorry to be barging in -"

"You're not staying then?" Avaric asked, disappointed.

"Just came to see the _infamous_ Misses Glinda and Elphaba. Absolutely _intrigued_ to hear your news."

That sent heads swivelling. Apart from Nessa's.

"Pray tell?" Crope prodded.

"Why? Did you not know?" Pfannee feigned. "How is it you did not know that Glinda and Elphaba are quite the most talked about couple in Shiz?"

Crope turned with the biggest grin on his face.

Boq spat out a mouthful of beer.

"I see you had not yet shared your news with your nearest and dearest. We'll leave you to it." And they swept out with their ama in tow.

" _What_ was that in reference to?" Avaric spoke for all.

Glinda blanched. "Well, the thing is, Elphaba and I…"

" _No?_ " Tibbett said in a manner that very much suggested he was hoping the answer was yes.

Avaric laughed and slapped the table. "Very well, you old rascal, I don't know how you do it…" He extracted a note from his pocket and threw it at Crope.

"You too Boq," Crope crowed. "Pay up, my good man."

"No!" Nessa cried out. "It's not true. It's some silly game the two of them are playing."

"Oh," Avaric said, disappointed.

"Oh," Boq said, encouraged.

"Urgh," Crope said, returning Avaric's money.

"Nessa…" Elphaba said, more a plea than an admonishment.

"But why?" asked poor honest Fiyero.

Glinda took that as her best opening. "It's complicated…" was all she managed. "I wanted my parents to think I had formed an attachment. But we have it under control."

She looked helplessly over at Elphaba who was talking in low, urgent tones with Nessa. Poor suffering Elphaba. Working so hard.

"But if you needed a suitor," Boq pondered, "weren't there easier choices? I might not be a Thropp Descending but my father is mayor of Rush Margins. That's not too shabby," he ended in a sulk.

"And I'm a Tenmeadows," Avaric put in. "That's not really the point." He thumped Boq so hard his glasses flew off. "Not enough beard, too much beard, who knows. Drink this filthy liquor - it will put some much-needed hairs on your chest."

* * *

Glinda had not precisely gone out of her way to avoid Nessa, but she had done little to put herself in Nessa's way either. There was a stand-off of sorts occurring at either side of the table. Nessa moved one way, Glinda the other. Nessa tried to move closer, Glinda fled to the privy. Not avoiding her at all.

Finally, she was captured.

Nessa smoothly dispatched Boq and Avaric, Crope and Tibbett in different directions and slid herself over the bench towards Glinda, who was obliged to steady her. Nessa leant against Glinda's hand on her back and tucked her head close to Glinda's ear.

"Nessa -" Glinda tried to say.

"You shouldn't be doing this to her. Think of her feelings."

"I know."

"You don't."

Glinda snapped back. "She will come out of this quite the blameless party and gossip will move on. You need not pretend concern for her when it's clear your real concern is for your own reputation."

"That is not even slightly what I mean. Release her from this. If you have any common decency not built on your own self-interest then release Elphaba before this all gets out of hand."

"And what is your concern? That some of this might rub off on you? Have you struck out of favour with the Unnamed God by association? Elphaba is a big girl. She can tell me herself if she wants out."

"She cannot. You should not be doing this to her."

"I do nothing she did not agree to."

"She would do anything for you no matter what you asked of her. I know we are not supposed to acknowledge it but you know it and you used it to your own ends without considering the damage." Speaking of Elphaba's vulnerabilities calmed them both for a moment. "I am not being cruel to you. I love my sister."

"I - I love her too."

Nessa held Glinda's gaze. For too long.

"She's my best friend," Glinda said helplessly. She wasn't sure she had ever articulated such feelings before and the inadequacy of them was striking.

Nessa nodded. "If that is true then put an end to this."

Putting an end to the evening overall was now top of Glinda's agenda. She stood and announced her intention to return to Crage Hall.

"Oh, no," Fiyero cried. "We will stop the teasing, please stay."

"It is getting late," she continued. "And I am still adjusting to my new bed in the dormitory. Elphie?"

"Of course." Elphaba stood too, offering her arm.

"Just give Nanny a moment to heave her old bones," Nanny said, heaving her old bones with great effort. "And Nessie, come on child."

"Good night then!" they called and were hailed in return.

Nessarose said nothing as they left the pub so Glinda and Elphaba fell in step behind.

"Best get a shuffle on, my pretties," Nanny instructed as she adjusted Nessa's shawl. "And you pair up ahead where I can keep an eye on you."

"Nanny, that's not necessary."

"Your pretence is my pretence, sugarplum."

"I shall be hearing about this to the end of my days," Elphaba groaned. "She will outlive me for the very purpose."

"Maybe that's what Nessa was referring to just now in my ticking off," Glinda said quietly as they pulled ahead.

Elphaba's gait shifted and she gazed off up the street. "Oh?"

"I thought she would be threatening fire and brimstone. But she is worried about you."

"She has no need."

"That's what I said. Clearly she wanted to say a good deal more. And I do understand."

"You do?"

"You are risking so much for me. Why?"

"Oh, well. What am I risking that I have not lost already?"

"Stop," Glinda said, leaning heavier on Elphaba's arm. "Enough self-flagellating. Maybe _that_ is what Nessa meant."

"But you," Elphaba began again abruptly, as they neared their destination, "you have actual risk to your reputation to contend with. To your prospects."

"My 'prospects'?" Glinda mocked cheerfully. "That's what I thought my mother might say. I don't give a flying monkey what any future romantic interest might think."

"About your very colourful history."

"You won't be history," Glinda said with comfortable assurance. "Of course you should always be a part of my life." The face of a future suitor was blurred but Elphaba's was never out of her mind.

They entered the vestibule of Crage Hall and towards the stairs. The next landing was where they would part now, for Glinda to return to the dormitories and the rest to continue on. Finally Nanny and Nessa overtook them as they lingered. Nessa's glance was sharp.

"I rather think Nessa is glad to see the back of me," Glinda murmured off her look. "She thinks I am corrupting you."

"It makes a change." Elphaba attempted levity. "Normally corruption is the charge laid against me."

"I am most certainly the bad influence in this situation."

"And I am not easily led. I wouldn't be doing anything I didn't want to do."

It was so untrue and Glinda loved her for it. Felt achingly grateful for it. She held Elphaba close for a moment, then released her, preparing to part. "I think you have done a lot of things you didn't want to do over the course of the last few weeks."

"Nothing," Elphaba repeated, and turned.

In Glinda's mind, Elphaba was kissing her again.


	9. Chapter 9

Glinda did not tell her parents of her removal to the dormitories. She did not tell them anything about what was unfolding.

What was unfolding? This was the difficulty.

Her world was now ever so slightly askew. A difference hardly noticeable at times but a nagging, incessantly troubling discrepancy.

As though she were in the warm consistency of her home but every ornament and piece of furniture had been moved a few inches to the side. She put out her hand in search of familiarity but there was nothing there. The seat of each chair was lower. For the barest clock tick, but several times a day, she felt as though she were falling.

And where was a hand to steady her? Elphaba could not precisely be termed a partner in crime in this pretence but was not far from aiding and abetting. Except she had evaporated.

Other times Glinda could hardly put her finger on it. Something was missing, a word fled from the tip of her tongue. An empty, grumbling spot in her gut. It made her moody and irritable at the very time she needed more composure than ever.

Dormitory life was really very taxing, she decided.

The point could hardly be made while she laid out on her bed, as she did now. Ostensibly reading, she had not turned a page in over an hour.

* * *

Other girls looked at her askance as she ventured up to the rooms. She tried to be stealthy, which was difficult when one was half of the most notorious couple on campus. She ducked into the nearest washroom for a few moments, sallied forth again when the coast was clear, made several detours past the end of the correct corridor, doubled back and affected a purposeful air until there were no witnesses. At which point she sprinted down the hall and entered her - Elphaba's - room without ceremony.

"Hello," was all Elphaba said, entirely unappreciative of the fact it had taken Glinda half an hour to arrive.

"Hello yourself." Glinda's instinct was to expound at length about her troubles but Elphaba ought not be a sympathetic audience. The idea that she might be sympathetic to Glinda's self-inflicted troubles was even worse.

"Do you have plans this evening?"

"Yes." Elphaba did not look up.

"That aren't the library?"

Disgruntled she admitted, "No."

"Would you like to go out for dinner?"

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why? Because of all this?"

Elphaba nodded at her incredulously.

"The whole point is that we are supposed to be stepping out together. So why don't we make the most of it and actually get out of this damned building for a few hours?"

"Getting claustrophobic in the dormitories?"

"You have no idea. Please?"

"We haven't a chaperone."

"Nanny?"

Elphaba shook her head. "She won't leave Nessa."

"And Nessa won't come? Urgh," Glinda groaned and flopped onto her bed. "Should I talk to her?"

Elphaba shook her head wildly now.

"Well then let's go without. You never used to mind."

"Before we were pretending to be a couple."

"Isn't this what couples do?"

Elphaba shrugged. "How would I know?"

There was a knock on the door. Elphaba gestured for Glinda to remain where she was, and answered it. "Ama Flight, how can I help you?"

That interfering old biddy from down the hall. Glinda knew exactly what she must be after.

"Miss Elphaba. I don't suppose I heard Miss Glinda in there just now?"

"You did, you heard us _talking_." Elphaba stood back and surrendered to the ama's entrance.

Glinda kicked her heels while perched on the edge of the bed, the picture of innocence. "Good afternoon, Ama."

Ama Flight pursed her lips. "I think you know you should not be here."

Glinda sighed. "To the Buttery then? A hand please, Elphaba?"

Obediently, Elphaba advanced and held out a hand for Glinda to pull herself up. Glinda maintained her grip and hauled Elphaba out of the room with her.

"I was studying, actually -"

"And I was talking until that meddling old -"

"Ahem." Ama Flight was still behind them.

"I know the way to the Buttery, Ama," Glinda called over her shoulder.

"Wouldn't want you to get waylaid," Ama Flight replied as she followed them all the way there.

Glinda collapsed at a table. Elphaba shuffled and sat. But now, everything that Glinda wanted to discuss was too private to be aired.

"Ama Flight has a point," Elphaba began, inexplicably.

"How so?"

"All this focus on where we sleep. As though there is no mischief to be made during the daylight hours. We could -" She stopped abruptly.

"Why, Miss Elphaba, have you a catalogue of quiet and secluded spots on campus fit for sneaking off to?"

Elphaba, greener now than pondweed, shushed Glinda's amusement.

"I can't tell whether you enjoy this or not," Elphaba said.

"What?"

"The whispers."

"Oh." Glinda looked around. Hands were over mouths protecting murmuring. Stares were being directed. "I don't hear them anymore," she dismissed. "Are we going out tonight? I would enjoy that."

Elphaba sighed. "I don't think so."

"We are being punished, we may as well commit something of the crime."

Elphaba was not persuaded. She was sat rigidly upright, her hands in her lap.

"Elphie, relax." Glinda reached over, rubbed the back of Elphaba's hand with her thumb. There were no whispers now.

Elphaba jerked back, rubbing her hands on her skirt. "That's not relaxing."

"I'm sorry," Glinda said quietly. "There's no upside to this situation."

Elphaba only looked down at her hands. "I've got to get back."

Elphaba left, Glinda's world slipping that little bit more with the absence.

* * *

Glinda resolved immediately that she must follow Elphaba and apologise properly. Having resolved this, she did nothing.

Instead she picked at a casserole and only discovered she did have an appetite in time for dessert where she managed six cakes before she felt queasy and returned to the dormitory.

Where she slept not a wink.

The next morning, back in the Buttery, Glinda loitered at the serving table, fussing with a loaf of bread. Presently Nanny and Nessa arrived. Elphaba was not in sight. After Nanny seated her charge she headed towards the food and saw Glinda. They diverted aside from the crowd who searched for pastries. Not for the answers to questions that crowded Glinda's mind.

"Trouble in paradise?" Nanny clucked.

"Do not rile me, Nanny," Glinda warned. "I haven't slept and am not sure I can be held responsible for my actions."

"That's what's known as pre-meditation," Nanny warned. "Magistrates don't take kindly to that."

"Where is she?"

"Not hungry apparently."

A loss of appetite seemed to be catching. "Is she in her room?"

"No, left early. Early as the cockerel."

"Where to?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. And I'm betting you only need one."

* * *

Glinda went directly to the library and after much searching found Elphaba sitting on the floor amongst the stacks. Elphaba barely glanced up as Glinda sat down next to her but tried to hand her a book saying, "Look at this…"

"Elphaba, why are you sat on the floor?"

"Closer to the books," she mumbled.

"Are you hiding from me or those girls who were staring and giggling at me as I came in?"

"Both."

"Look at me, please."

Elphaba lifted her head from the pages but fixed her gaze slightly over Glinda's ear. It was close enough.

"Elphie, sweetheart. It's time, isn't it?"

Elphaba opened her mouth to protest but only exhaled. Her mouth twitched to speak but nothing came.

Glinda knew. "Don't, it's all right. You have humoured me too long already. Things will get easier now. I can move back in. We can get back to normal."

"No more operas," Elphaba finally said.

"No more operas," Glinda smiled and leaned into her.

"What will you tell your parents?"

"What do you think?" She was not making that mistake again, of vexing Elphaba with her clumsiness. "Just that it happened? No details?"

"They will worry about you. Better to say it was your decision. You can blame me."

"I don't think they would believe that," Glinda smiled. "Besides, I don't want to get into another big lie to get out of one."

"Not that I think they would push for a reconciliation."

"I am sure they will. I will make a point of reading that part of the letter to you. Over and over. They like you." She rested her head on Elphaba's shoulder. She didn't understand why she felt so sad.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want me to come in with you?"

"I wouldn't subject you to any more Madame Morrible than is absolutely necessary. I can handle this." Glinda squeezed Elphaba's hands quickly and rounded the corner towards Morrible's office.

The Head's secretary had her sit and wait for a few minutes until Morrible appeared leading out some visitors.

"Ah, Miss Glinda."

"Thank you for finding the time," Glinda said as Morrible ushered her in.

"Always a delight to see you, my dear. Tea?"

"No, thank you." She shot a look at the tik tok creature as she sat down.

"Don't mind him," Morrible instructed. "Unless you do want tea. Tell me then, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I wanted to let you know - as you have expressed such an interest -" she could not help but add -"that unfortunately Elphaba and I have broken off our courtship."

"Oh, so sad! How are you taking it, you poor child?"

"It is fine," Glinda choked. "We are resolved to return to being friends."

"Very mature, very mature," Morrible fussed. "And Miss Elphaba is not too distraught?"

Glinda felt very distinctly that she was being teased. There was no evidence other than her own gut. The Madame's lip pouted.

"Elphaba is fine also."

"Oh, good. You see, this is always my worry. My concern for my charges is boundless, truly."

It seemed as though there must be an invisible audience Morrible was appealing to.

"You are too kind, of course we know you have our best interests at heart."

"Indeed, indeed. And thank you for the update, though sad." Morrible turned in her chair. "Will that be all?"

"Well..." Glinda prevaricated.

"Yes?"

"I rather thought I might be able to move back into my room."

"Oh dear, oh no." Morrible rose and moved around behind her desk.

Glinda followed in pursuit. "No?"

Morrible sat and turned to some paperwork.

"But it's over," Glinda remonstrated.

Madame Morrible leant back in her chair and looked over her glasses. "Normally you find people do not wish to be thrown back into close quarters once they have called things off. Such acrimony is yet another reason I discourage the whole affair. And in any case, Miss Glinda, I am afraid it just would not do. No, it's the dormitory for you."

Glinda had the wind dramatically taken out of her sails. She floundered in front of her Head.

"Maybe at the start of the new semester next year you will get lucky and one of your colleagues will have been more successful in her courtship than you and go off to get married so that a place opens up in another room. I assure you, the situation will be yours."

"There is a place in Elphaba's room," Glinda pointed out.

"Out of the question, I am afraid. Now, if you will excuse me…"

Glinda wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of any further argument. Additionally, she had acquired a sudden pain in her abdomen and a shortness of breath.

So she left, but was surprised to bump into Elphaba still loitering in the hallway.

"You need not have waited."

"What's wrong?"

Obviously she was not as put together as she would like. "Not here." She tucked her hand through Elphaba's arm and steered her uncooperative and stumbling companion out to the gardens.

After manhandling Elphaba round several corners of winding path Glinda deposited her on a bench and took position in front.

"Morrible won't reinstate me to our room." Glinda blurted out, while trying to stay as calm as possible. Which, under the circumstances proved impossible.

"Ah. Did you -"

"Yes, I explained, I tried," Glinda snapped, even as desperately unhappy as she was. "She will not budge. She said we wouldn't want to be rooming together if we had called things off. Think: if I had broken your heart you would be angry with me. Or perhaps we would pretend we had fallen out only to get reunited. Oh, this is too much. I don't know what to do."

"And if she would not give in to your considerable charms there is no point my attempting the same, I suppose."

"Don't tease me."

"I am not, I am sorry."

"I am not convinced you are." She was feeling sorry for herself, though Elphaba was not a particularly good choice for reassurance. "Are you not enjoying my comeuppance even a little?"

"No," Elphaba said very seriously. "I am sorry you have to stay in the dormitory."

"It's not about that," Glinda huffed, exasperated beyond measure. And not simply at Elphaba.

At herself. All this experience had taught her yet she still maintained so many pretences. "I have missed you."

"And I you."

"Truly?"

"Of course." Elphaba frowned. "Glinda, of course. I don't want you to imagine me unmoved by this."

Had she imagined that? Elphaba was never what one might term 'sympathetic'. Even before everything Glinda had put her through recently.

Now this. All these ills Glinda had caused that seemed to never want to disappear. Horror crawled through Glinda.

"I have ruined everything. Over a childish and impetuous letter. Then pride and vanity. Out of some quest to make myself the centre of attention."

"Do not be so hard on yourself," Elphaba said.

"You think it's not true? You don't generally shy away from condemning me."

"I don't think it's true," Elphaba said levelly, not rising to Glinda's jibes.

"What then? What could possibly motivate me to have done this?"

Elphaba looked away. "Perhaps…"

When there was nothing more forthcoming Glinda gave in to her exasperation to find relief by pacing back and forth. They were alone, in the shadow of one of the trees that loomed behind the main courtyard. Quite cut off from the rest of the world.

Then Elphaba rose in pursuit. "Perhaps you are searching for something. For your parents' acceptance?"

"Acceptance of what?" Here she was, interrogating Elphaba over the workings of her own mind. She knew there was an answer. Just not what it was.

Elphaba spread her arms. "Whatever we want our parents to accept us for. For who we are. For who we aren't. For the scars they gave us that we seek forgiveness of. For them to love what they made of us. Whatever it is, we pursue it to madness."

Acceptance. Forgiveness. Love.

* * *

Elphaba,

I had to return home. I do not know when I will be back. This has all been rather too much for me. I hope the situation will return to normal for you. And I wish that normal were better for you.

Thank you, for all your forbearance and resilience. I have caused the most terrible difficulty for you and you have offered nothing but support. Albeit in your own way.

I will miss you.

Glinda


	10. Chapter 10

The door to Glinda's room creaked open slowly. "Are you here, darling?" Larena peered round cautiously.

As if Glinda had been anywhere but in two weeks.

"You can come in," Glinda said, wearily extending her mother a basic courtesy in her own home.

Except her mother was clutching at a letter.

Another one.

She proffered it.

"Could you just put it with the others?"

Larena added it to the two unopened on Glinda's bureau. She approached gently and perched on the end of Glinda's bed.

"Will you come into town with me?"

A similar entreaty had come each day. "Not today, Mother."

"What will you do?"

"Read a while, maybe take a walk." She might as well have said she planned to swim in Kellswater – it was just as likely to happen. She would open a book to lie unread in her lap and the "walk" would take the form of a mooch down to the kitchen to see what she could pilfer.

"Maybe tomorrow?" her mother asked, in a triumph of hope over experience.

"Perhaps. I hope it goes well."

Her mother left and Glinda lay a while longer, rolling around as she grew increasingly uncomfortable. She'd be developing bedsores before long. So she put on a dressing gown and followed her nose to the kitchen to swipe some pastries. She sat alone in the dining room, chewing despondently. Chewing the cud like the bellowing cows outside the window.

She contemplated how things had gotten so far out of hand. How willingly she had fallen into such total deceit. How she had jeopardised everything. Her relationship with her parents, her university career... Elphaba. Not just her relationship with Elphaba but Elphaba's relationship with her own self. Jeopardised Elphaba in general.

She did not want to know what Elphaba was thinking. What recriminations and accusations the letters upstairs might hold.

This was a circumstance she could not begin to unravel.

Elphaba said - and wasn't that half of what had got Glinda into this trouble! - that Glinda was searching for something. For a coming-to-terms with her parents. But, that achieved, Glinda felt no better. Because it was based on a lie? She had extracted kindness and understanding from them under false pretences.

It wasn't that she missed Elphaba. No. She missed her life at Shiz, as strange as it had been for a long time. Her independence, the city. How she and Elphaba could disappear over the garden wall. How Nessa and Nanny baited Elphaba in the Buttery and Elphaba's responses, heavy with distraction and love. How Elphaba was so easily sought out, perched around every corner. How Glinda looked for her now, in every chair, on every bed, behind every door.

Perhaps she missed Elphaba.

Perhaps she missed Elphaba in ways she hadn't known were possible. The constant exhaustion of it. Sometimes the absence of Elphaba hit her so hard she needed to sit.

Then, the knowledge of how she had hurt Elphaba made her curl up in the chair, shaking with the frustration of tears she couldn't shed. She had no right to be sad.

She drew a chair to the window of the dining room and looked out. She could go out, there was nothing stopping her. Bar her own self-imposed imprisonment. It was a punishment that she could break at any time. And yet it was impossible.

To save any more introspection her body lulled her into a merciful sleep instead.

* * *

The house was dark when Glinda woke, all manner of stiff and displeased. Her joints cracked as she rose and she hobbled to the stairs like an old woman. The hall was still and silent. But up the stairs, she noticed as she hauled herself up slowly, there was a light in the corridor to her room.

Glinda heard the gentle creak of the floorboards in her room, the tapping of shoes on the wood. Moving slowly now for stealth rather than aches and pains, she drew level with the door. Her heart pounded as she looked round, even though she knew what she would see.

There was her mother, casting a long shadow in the light of a single lamp, leaning over Glinda's desk.

Glinda cleared her throat. Not to be dramatic. More because she wasn't sure what to say.

"Oh!" Larena exclaimed. "I thought you had gone out."

"Would it have been acceptable to rifle through my things if I were out, rather than at home?"

"I'm sorry."

Glinda stalked over and snatched the letters from her mother's hands. She had immediately known exactly what her mother was looking for. She held the envelopes gently. As though they were combustible. As though they could explode, and take Glinda with them.

"It's just that I am so worried about you."

"Don't tell me, you were doing it for my own good. I've heard that one before."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for that then and I'm sorry for this now. But, sweetheart, I am _so worried_ about you."

Of course she was, Glinda knew she was. Her mother was stressed and wrung thin. Glinda had done that. It was a punishment.

"Will you not talk to me?" Larena continued. "I want to understand. I want to help."

"I don't want to talk."

"If not to me, then to someone else? Your father?"

Glinda almost laughed out loud. "No, I will spare him that. I don't want to talk to anyone."

"I would understand if you did not trust me with your confidences."

"It's not that." Yet, Glinda was talking. "I wouldn't even know what to say."

"Why will you not open Elphaba's letters? If you have quarreled perhaps she wishes to be reconciled?"

"We didn't quarrel. No more than usual." She smiled a little at the fond memory of their many and frequent quarrels.

"Well then…" Larena was at a loss. "Whatever it is, Elphaba clearly misses you."

Looking back down at the letters in her hands Glinda wished she could be so sure. She had, of course, considered that the letters might be filled with sadness and kindnesses. Equally - more than equally - likely - they were filled with remonstrations and admonitions. The risk of the latter was too great. If Glinda didn't open them, she never had to face it.

"You don't understand," Glinda said.

"I want to," her mother near enough pleaded. "Let me show you. That I love you no matter what."

"I fell in love with her - I didn't murder her," Glinda pointed out, irritated.

"No, you are right. I must be aware of my language. I didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong with…"

Her mother continued to speak. But Glinda was distracted by the out of body experience she was currently undergoing.

Her throat constricted. "I love her," she choked.

"Oh yes," her mother hurried to say. "Of course you do and it is wonderful."

"No," Glinda said, tears falling now. "I really love her. I am in love with Elphaba."

Her mother confused and Glinda inconsolable, Larena put her arms around her daughter. "It will be all right, my love," she soothed.

"It is so very far from all right."

Glinda was engulfed by the visceral sensations of loving Elphaba. The touch of Elphaba's hands, the warmth of her body in bed beside her, the sound of her breath across the room in the night. The warmth of it rose up to smother her.

Every moment together happened again all at once and the combined force of it was crushing.

To escape, Glinda leapt up and paced the room. "No," she commanded herself sternly. Futilely.

And yet, it all made such a terrible, perfect sense. She was in love with Elphaba and it seemed so obvious now.

How long had her world revolved around Elphaba? Longer than Glinda cared to admit or would have admitted at the time. For so long it had become second nature and totally unremarkable. It hardly registered. It just was.

Nothing was an accident. Elphaba's name appearing from her pen. Urging Elphaba into a ruse. Bringing Elphaba here to Frottica.

Glinda moaned as the pieces crashed rather than fell into place. Great big boulders shot through her mind, careening and splintering, wrecking everything. "What have I done?"

Unable to answer the question, unwilling to even begun assessing the damage she had caused and the sinister pall cast over her motives, she instead wept on her uncomprehending mother's shoulder some more, until darkness had entirely fallen.

* * *

Glinda finally fell asleep just before dawn only to wake a few hours later after stressful dreams of her textbooks written in a foreign tongue she was expected to understand but that slipped from her grasp.

Her mother was asleep in her bed, with Glinda curled at the foot.

It was barely a clock tick before Elphaba was there in her mind. Which was the case every day. Now it felt like a haunting. Even splashing water on her face could not banish the reproachful spectre.

She looked up at herself in the glass.

"No," she commanded herself sternly. Not an instruction not to go down that path, it had already happened and there was no coming back now. She had fallen in love with Elphaba, not only that but been so out of touch with her own feelings that it had come as such a shock. The "no" was to wallowing, to slipping further, to unspooling. She would not sink into despair over what she had done to Elphaba and how Elphaba must now hate her.

Glinda resolved there and then to do her penance and undertake a radical course in self-improvement.

This was in no way about deserving Elphaba or redeeming herself as she was convinced that was an impossibility. Elphaba's letters remained unopened on her bureau. A reconciliation with Elphaba was not on the cards anytime soon. Instead, Glinda turned to the only person she had any control over in the world - herself.

Having moped for a straight fortnight she went on a walk but in nine invigorating miles could not answer the single question: how had she not known?

It was a question that by turns eluded her and she attempted to elude it. She would ponder it for hours sometimes. Other times she would bury herself in reading something musty and serious or polishing the silverware or even shovelling manure just to avoid thinking about it.

There was a question looming in her future, shouted by the birds each morning and suspended on the sunset each evening: what was she going to do?

That question Glinda refused to even acknowledge. Not yet. She had time, she could put it off indefinitely if necessary.

* * *

"You are doing so much better, my darling," her mother said a few days later when Glinda actually appeared for breakfast.

"Yes, I suppose I am," Glinda said. 'Better' was not exactly how she would put it. Different. Calmer, certainly. Resigned, perhaps. But at least no longer at a loss as she had been in the first weeks after returning home.

Until her father came in, glanced helplessly at Larena, and placed a letter on the table in front of Glinda.

Immaculate handwriting glared at her reproachfully. I know, she told it silently.

"Thank you, Papa."

After breakfast she took the letter to sit with its brethren then threw herself at the mercy and distraction of the day and drove into Frottica with her father to the cattle market. If this seemed remarkable it's because it was and she received several strange glances. But her father took her arm proudly and said how pleased he was that she had come.

And so she went to other places with him, received deliveries, loaded milk churns and received her very first blister, of which she was inordinately proud.

Her father and Hapa the cowherd tried to dissuade her but Glinda was determined to double down on her injuries. She was back in the cowshed the next day, shovelling piles of shit that had to be seen to be believed. She fantasised about her hands growing calloused, that she might have evidence of how she was improving herself. How she was facing up to the realities of life - even if they were totally unrelated to her current problems.

She was regularly checked on, poor Hapa quite beside himself with having Miss Galinda in the yard. She would shovel and try to come up with thoughtful questions for him, to show she respected his craft and experience.

Now there was a creaking at the door of the shed. A good opportunity to take a break while discovering more about vermiculture. Also to get some fresh air.

"Yoohoo! Hapa!" Glinda headed to the door, wiping her hands on her smock though they retained almost every iota of dirt and picked up some straw besides.

"Hapa, I wondered -"

Glinda looked to the door.

"Oh, of course, it's you," she said, on many levels totally unsurprised even as every cell in her body leapt in terror.

"Yes," said Elphaba. "It's me."


	11. Chapter 11

"Yes," said Elphaba. "It's me." She was failing to suppress a smile. "You look... Not as I expected."

It pleased Glinda a good deal to have Elphaba looking some sort of impressed. Having Elphaba there, in general, pleased Glinda a good deal more.

Despite all the worrying and fear and anticipation she smiled back.

They stayed there until hooves sounded in the yard and Glinda pulled Elphaba away, away from the stench and surveillance, around the barn to the field at the back.

"Why are you here? How are you here?" It sounded a little cross, which Glinda was pleased about. She could not reveal how desperately happy she was, too scared now to slip.

"By train."

"On your own?"

"No, there were many other people."

"Stop teasing me, I know you did not charter a private train. No Nanny?"

"No."

"Does Morrible know?"

"No."

"We're both liable to get thrown out," Glinda mused.

"Good," Elphaba said emphatically.

"You've not actually been thrown out?" Glinda thought to check.

"No, not yet."

A moment's pause, for a consideration. "Have I?"

"Not that I've heard. Was that what you were trying to accomplish?"

"I'm not sure," Glinda said. "I'm sorry for being so abrupt."

Elphaba nodded. "Are you sorry for not answering my letters too?"

"I am sorry for not reading them."

"Why?" Elphaba tipped her head, curious. If Glinda didn't know better she would say it were beautiful.

"I didn't know what they would say."

"That's why you read letters," Elphaba said gently. "To find out what they say."

"I thought I knew that you would be angry."

"What for?"

Glinda spread her arms but nothing could encompass the enormity of what she had done. "Take your pick."

"Oh, that. No."

"You ought to be."

"Well, I was. Several times. But not since you left. I rather thought you might be angry with me?"

Now Glinda was surprised. "Why?"

"Because you didn't reply to my letters."

But she came. That was brave of her, much braver than Glinda had managed to be about it. Their situations, of course, were different, as Glinda had so recently realised.

"This has all become very complicated," Glinda diagnosed, and sat down at the foot of a tree.

Elphaba followed suit, folding herself up more carefully.

Glinda looked at her, trying to answer the 'what are you going to do' question. Being as she hadn't been able to answer it with many days of trying it seemed unlikely she would do so immediately. She could not.

Did she owe Elphaba a more complete explanation of her actions? She was afraid to. Would it help? She thought, on balance, not. She was ashamed of her behaviour and this admission would muddy the waters still further. And how would Elphaba react? Glinda never had any clue how Elphaba would react to even the most benign of stimuli let alone something of this magnitude. Something with emotion attached. And the fear that she had led Elphaba into this ruse while somehow knowing, as a manipulation. It was an enormous betrayal. No, Elphaba could never hear of it.

"So what did you say in your letters?"

"Did you burn them?"

"No."

"You can read them for yourself."

"A synopsis," Glinda wheedled.

"Very well. That I thought you ought to come back to Shiz."

"Is that all?"

"Broadly speaking."

"There must have been more."

Elphaba sighed and looked fidgety. "Yes and I wrote it so that I would not have to say it."

Not entirely so brave. Poor emotionally stunted Elphaba. "Coward," Glinda muttered fondly.

"Says the girl who left a note before disappearing for the best part of a month," Elphaba noted, apparently just as fondly.

"I don't dispute it. I'm glad you came. That you are less of a coward than me."

"I wouldn't say that," Elphaba said, looking the part and very nervous for a moment.

It prompted Glinda back to politeness. "I'm being a terrible host," she said. "But I don't know what to do with you. I'm afraid my mother will be overjoyed to see you."

"That's not generally the reaction I provoke."

"You really need to start updating your expectations, in light of all these events."

"But you told her."

Glinda balked. "The truth?"

"No, that we had broken it off."

"Yes, but she lives in hope."

"Really?"

"The bureaucracy in your brain must be terrible. Yes, Elphaba, really."

"I'll work on it," Elphaba said grudgingly, "but it won't be instantaneous. You can't change the habits of a lifetime that quick."

"Only a very short lifetime, thus far. Plenty of time to change." Glinda felt rather like she was making a promise, and Elphaba looked back at her as if she heard it as one too.

* * *

"Elphaba!" Her mother was, as Glinda had predicted, thrilled. She clapped her hands together before opening her arms and giving what looked to be the biggest embrace Elphaba had ever received. Or suffered, given that Glinda could see Elphaba's face frozen in fear.

Mercifully released, Elphaba stammered something but was steamrollered by Larena. "It is so lovely to see you again. How kind of you to make the trip. Glinda has been beside herself all this time -"

"Thank you, Mother!" Glinda grabbed ahold of Elphaba's arm and began steering towards the staircase. "Don't worry about us for supper!"

"Actually, I wouldn't mind -" Elphaba started to say but Glinda practically kicked her up the stairs and rushed her to Glinda's bedroom.

She stood with her back against the door in case Larena tried to barrage her way in.

"I'll get you some bread and butter later," she negotiated.

Elphaba shrugged but was mollified.

"So…" Glinda affected a very casual air but failed to follow through.

"Yes," Elphaba apparently agreed.

Glinda perched on the edge of her bed.

Elphaba moved some clothes to sit in an armchair.

"Can I get you anything? That doesn't involve my going downstairs? Can I offer you a book?"

"Do you have anything new in?"

"I have a good many reports on trade delegations to the Emerald City and the ramifications of the Munchkinland drought on the state of the dairy industry." She gestured to her desk.

"Oh really?" There was absolutely no indication of any sarcasm in Elphaba's voice, disappointingly.

"Yes, but if you disappear into them I shall be very upset. I haven't seen you for weeks."

"Apparently you have been busy reforming the Pertha Hills economy."

"True," she smiled. "But I have… I have missed conversations - with Nessa."

Elphaba blinked. "With Nessa?"

"Yes, very much."

"I see."

"And Nanny's helpful theological digressions as to all the many demons she has encountered in life."

"She does have a great deal of those stories," Elphaba conceded. "Who else have you missed?"

"The boys, naturally. The whole unnamed lot of them."

"They have missed you."

"How sweet. I have missed their truly invigorating late-night conversations about the nature of good and evil."

"You mean about how the girls scorn them and their fathers don't give them enough allowance?"

"Yes, it does tend to be more prosaic sorts of good and evil, doesn't it?"

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say."

Unwittingly Elphaba had cut rather too close to home.

"I have missed you," was all Glinda could say. It was still a lot. It was more than she had meant to say.

"And I you."

There was still a desperate part of Glinda that wanted to tell Elphaba all these new realisations. To be able to say, "Actually, I think you are rather wonderful." Not as flattery or to elicit gratitude. Not because she loved Elphaba. More because loving Elphaba overwhelmed Glinda with a desire for Elphaba to see herself as she truly was. As Glinda now saw her.

"As your reward for all that conversing you may read some of my papers. They are there on my desk."

Elphaba stood obediently, rifled through the detritus on Glinda's desk and came over to the bed. Glinda shuffled across expectantly and was rewarded with Elphaba assuming position next to her. Conversation was nice but the real contentment was just in Elphaba being there. Just in Elphaba existing.

Into Glinda's lap landed the envelopes she had been avoiding all this time. She looked across to Elphaba, who smirked.

"Very well," Glinda said and allowed herself to slip down the bed a little, to get comfy with the warmth of Elphaba by her side.

Soon she was so engrossed in Elphaba's terse prose just as academically distant when describing insights from lectures as when relating extracurricular antics with their friends. There was nothing for Elphaba to have been shy about there. Until the final paragraphs that grew more reflective and ruminative over Glinda's absence. Still, there was nothing for Elphaba to have been distracted about. Unlike Glinda's own fateful and revealing correspondence.

Glinda folded the last letter and replaced it in the envelope. There was some instinct to keep them intact, keep every last part of Elphaba's missives.

"I should get you that supper," Glinda murmured and turned to Elphaba. Who was entirely asleep, papers fallen against her chest and rustling gently with each breath.

The sight of her all vulnerable made Glinda giddy. She felt wrong, embarrassed, to be looking at Elphaba like that. Even though she had so many times before.

She slipped from the bed and went to the door. She would leave Elphaba - could not risk waking her to get undressed all sleepy and soft. Instead, Glinda went next door to the guest room and got into bed fully clothed. Straw, dirt, and all.

She lasted all of fifteen minutes before she was propelled back into her room. She didn't want to let Elphaba out of her sight from some fear she would crumble away or have been simply a mirage. To anchor Elphaba there she slipped an arm over her shoulder. In Glinda's arms, she felt real - was real.

* * *

Glinda, the coward, waited until Elphaba was almost ready to leave for the station - coat on and everything - before she admitted, "I can't come back with you."

"Why?"

But Glinda couldn't even begin to put together an excuse. Despite having remained awake all night in anticipation of this moment.

"You can," Elphaba urged. "If you are embarrassed you need not worry. Several more scandalous things have already happened since your departure that have quite eclipsed our little charade."

While the promise of such gossip was tantalising, Glinda held firm. "It's not that."

"And I have put it all behind me," Elphaba continued. "No more fits of pique, I guarantee it."

"And it's certainly not that," she said firmly. "You were quite right to be angry with me. I dragged you into a ridiculous lie."

"That's not quite right either," Elphaba said. Fidgeting again.

"It was Elphaba. You are being far too generous with me and I'm sure I don't know why."

"It was a variety of fun."

There was no way around this without puncturing Elphaba's self-esteem yet again. "Well, yes. But that's not what I mean." She took a deep breath, in preparation for whatever was to come.

"More terrible than fun." Elphaba nodded sadly, agreeing with herself.

"No - oh, for goodness sake - I don't - Elphaba, the terrible part was how fun it was. That it was torture because, well, because I wanted it to be real. I didn't know it - but I wanted it to be real."

Elphaba only stood, one hand paused in midair.

"And I know that is terrible too and I promise I didn't mean to manipulate you into this and cause you so much upset and I am sorry."

Elphaba remained quiet.

"Elphaba, please. Can you just say something? I'm not asking for anything. If nothing else you can just go back to Shiz and know that everything you have thought about yourself was wrong."

Glinda threw herself on the sword of Elphaba's confidence. She was exhausted and desperate for Elphaba to understand, even if it meant Glinda losing everything.

"Can I just - before I make a terrible mistake of my own - can I just clarify what it is you are saying?"

"That I am in love with you."

"I see. Just… one more time?"

"I am in love with you, Elphaba." It terrified her, but it was a relief of an ache she had carried for so long.

"Right."

Glinda waited patiently. Whatever happened next at least Elphaba knew the truth of it.

Elphaba remained frozen. Eventually, "It's just that…"

"Yes," Glinda encouraged.

"It's just that the reason I got so caught up in it all and angry, and so on… was because it came so close to being something I had been wanting for a long time. But knew could never happen. So I'm afraid I got rather petulant about it."

"You had every right. How I feel about you…" Glinda approached and took Elphaba's hand from midair.

"How you feel about me…" Elphaba repeated, clearly struggling.

And Glinda was struggling too. Struggling to stay upright when her knees were weak and her stomach was churning.

"How I feel about you is no excuse for how I have treated you." Then she laughed. Nervousness, adrenaline, something. "Just to clarify…"

"Yes," Elphaba said quickly. "Yes. It does. That's what I mean."

"Right. That didn't clarify much."

It was clear though from the look on Elphaba's face.

Glinda smiled, she couldn't help it.

That seemed to relieve Elphaba, who smiled too. "What does it mean?"

"I suppose it means we can do all the things we wanted to do but couldn't… or that we were doing but were pretending not to want? I don't know. We get to decide, for ourselves, what it means."

Elphaba nodded. Still they stood.

"I'm sorry," Elphaba said. "I'm not sure what to do. I never thought…"

"Nor I," Glinda rushed to say. "I never even considered - when I thought about telling you - that you might feel the same."

"I just need some time, to adjust."

Glinda squeezed Elphaba's hand, then let it go. She backed off a step. "You take as much time as you need. I'll be here when you are ready."

Elphaba nodded mutely and looked relieved.

Barely a clock tick later her hands were back on Glinda's pulling them together. Elphaba moved against Glinda, hands trapped between them until Elphaba moved to cup Glinda's face, drawing her closer.

Glinda's breath caught and immediately Elphaba's lips were on her own. Elphaba's unwavering determination inflamed Glinda's blood. No hesitation, Glinda pushed back into the kiss. Her hands snaking around Elphaba's back she crushed herself closer and closer until there was no further to go. Nothing between them. Not anymore.


End file.
